A Sierpinski Carpet Five Band Antenna for Wireless Applications

A compact Sierpinski Carpet square fractal multiband antenna operating at 3.9 (WiMAX) /6.6 (Satellite TV) /8.1/10.7/11.8 GHz (X-band) is presented. The proposed Microstrip Patch Antenna (MSPA) consists of a Sierpinski Carpet square fractal radiator in which square slots are etched out and a tapered microstrip feed line. The Sierpinski Carpet square fractal patch modifies the current resonant path thereby making the antenna to operate at five useful bands. Impedance matching at these bands are solely achieved by using Sierpinski square slot and tapered feedline, thus eliminating the need of any external matching circuit. The dimensions of the compact antenna is  and exhibits S11<-10dB bandwidth of about 4.8% (4.01-3.82 GHz), 2.1% (6.62-6.48 GHz), 2.7% (8.24-8.02 GHz), 2.1% (10.77-10.54 GHz) and 21% (12.1-11.60 GHz) with the gain of 7.57/3.91/3.77/6.74/1.33 dB at the operating frequencies 3.9/6.6/8.1/10.7 and 11.8 GHz, respectively under simulation analysis carried out by using HFSS v.13.0

Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Strain HTF-F and Its Extracellular Polymeric Matrix Attenuate Clinical Parameters in DSS-Induced Colitis

Date of Acceptance: 26/02/2015 Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Faecalibacterium prausnitzii A2-165 has a high capacity to induce IL-10 in human and murine dendritic cells and modulates T cell responses

Acknowledgements This work was financially supported by the EC FP7 Cross-talk project (PITN-GA-2008-215553). The authors thank the Histology Platform from GABI research unit and especially Abdelhak Boukadiri for their technical support in the histology sample preparation and Marlène Héry, Charline Pontlevoy, Jerome Pottier and André Tiffoche (UE0907 IERP, Jouy en Josas) for their help during animal experiments. The authors thank Rafael Muñoz-Tamayo (INRA) for his help in performing the PCA.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Dynamics of the normal gut microbiota: A longitudinal one-year population study in Sweden

Temporal dynamics of the gut microbiota potentially limit the identification of microbial features associated with health status. Here, we used whole-genome metagenomic and 16S rRNA gene sequencing to characterize the intra- and inter-individual variations of gut microbiota composition and functional potential of a disease-free Swedish population (n = 75) over one year. We found that 23% of the total compositional variance was explained by intra-individual variation. The degree of intra-individual compositional variability was negatively associated with the abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (a butyrate producer) and two Bifidobacterium species. By contrast, the abundance of facultative anaerobes and aerotolerant bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Lactobacillus acidophilus varied extensively, independent of compositional stability. The contribution of intra-individual variance to the total variance was greater for functional pathways than for microbial species. Thus, reliable quantification of microbial features requires repeated samples to address the issue of intra-individual variations of the gut microbiota

Kaempferol: a key emphasis to its anticancer potential

A marked decrease in human cancers, including breast cancer, bone cancer, and cervical cancer, has been linked to the consumption of vegetable and fruit, and the corresponding chemoprotective e ect has been associated with the presence of several active molecules, such as kaempferol. Kaempferol is a major flavonoid aglycone found in many natural products, such as beans, bee pollen, broccoli, cabbage, capers, cauliflower, chia seeds, chives, cumin, moringa leaves, endive, fennel, and garlic. Kaempferol displays several pharmacological properties, among them antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, and antidiabetic activities, and is being applied in cancer chemotherapy. Specifically, kaempferol-rich food has been linked to a decrease in the risk of developing some types of cancers, including skin, liver, and colon. The mechanisms of action include apoptosis, cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase, downregulation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related markers, and phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathways. In this sense, this article reviews data from experimental studies that investigated the links between kaempferol and kaempferol-rich food intake and cancer prevention. Even though growing evidence supports the use of kaempferol for cancer prevention, further preclinical and clinical investigations using kaempferol or kaempferol-rich foods are of pivotal importance before any public health recommendation or formulation using kaempferol.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Antioxidants keep the potentially probiotic but highly oxygen-sensitive human gut bacterium Faecalibacterium prausnitzii alive at ambient air

The beneficial human gut microbe Faecalibacterium prausnitzii is a 'probiotic of the future' since it produces high amounts of butyrate and anti-inflammatory compounds. However, this bacterium is highly oxygen-senstive, making it notoriously difficult to cultivate and preserve. This has so far precluded its clinical application in the treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases. The present studies were therefore aimed at developing a strategy to keep F. prausnitzii alive at ambient air. Our previous research showed that F. prausnitzii can survive in moderately oxygenized environments like the gut mucosa by transfer of electrons to oxygen. For this purpose, the bacterium exploits extracellular antioxidants, such as riboflavin and cysteine, that are abundantly present in the gut. We therefore tested to what extent these antioxidants can sustain the viability of F. prausnitzii at ambient air. The present results show that cysteine can facilitate the survival of F. prausnitzii upon exposure to air, and that this effect is significantly enhanced the by addition of riboflavin and the cryoprotectant inulin. The highly oxygen-sensitive gut bacterium F. prausnitzii can be kept alive at ambient air for 24 h when formulated with the antioxidants cysteine and riboflavin plus the cryoprotectant inulin. Improved formulations were obtained by addition of the bulking agents corn starch and wheat bran. Our present findings pave the way towards the biomedical exploitation of F. prausnitzii in redox-based therapeutics for treatment of dysbiosis-related inflammatory disorders of the human gut

How Can Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Employ Riboflavin for Extracellular Electron Transfer?

Faecalibacterium prausnitzii is one of the most abundant commensal microbes in the human gut. It is an important supplier of butyrate to the colonic epithelium, and low numbers of faecalibacteria have been associated with severe inflammatory bowel disease. Previous studies revealed that F. prausnitzii shuttles electrons extracellularly to oxygen in systems containing flavins and thiols. Since this electron shuttling to oxygen strongly stimulates growth, the present studies were aimed at elucidating the role of riboflavin as an extracellular electronophore of F. prausnitzii. We show that F. prausnitzii can use riboflavin as a mediator for extracellular electron transfer (EET) to the anode of microbial fuel cell systems. However, this bacterium relies on exogenous riboflavin, since it does not secrete this compound as shown by the analysis of a spent growth medium using cyclic voltammetry (CV). Importantly, CV showed that riboflavin can undergo fully reversible redox cycling under physiologically relevant conditions. Lastly, riboflavin is shown to mediate the electrochemical oxidation of the main bacterial reducing equivalent NADH. Based on our present observations, we hypothesize that riboflavin is of major importance as a redox mediator for bacterial EET and growth in the human gut. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 17, 1433-1440

Scanning electron micrographs of <i>F. prausnitzii</i>-containing formulations.

<p>All formulations shown contained cysteine and riboflavin supplemented either with corn starch (A), inulin (B), or wheat bran, corn starch and inulin (C and D). Corn starch has a discrete bead-like appearence (A). In contrast, inulin forms a flake-like matrix (B), that can form a coating around corn starch and/or wheat bran, thereby entrapping the bacterial cells (C and D). Images A, B and C were recorded at 500× magnification, and image D was recorded at 1500× magnification. The arrows indicate entrapped <i>F. prausnitzii</i> cells.</p

Schematic representation of the methodology employed to investigate the survival of <i>F. prausnitzii</i> in different formulations upon exposure to air.

<p>Steps 1–4 were conducted in an anaerobic chamber, and steps 5–7 were conducted aerobically in ambient air. The final step 8, involving rehydration and viability assays, was conducted in an anaerobic chamber.</p