Open-source genomic analysis of Shiga-toxin–producing E. coli O104:H4

An outbreak caused by Shiga-toxin–producing Escherichia coli O104:H4 occurred in Germany in May and June of 2011, with more than 3000 persons infected. Here, we report a cluster of cases associated with a single family and describe an open-source genomic analysis of an isolate from one member of the family. This analysis involved the use of rapid, bench-top DNA sequencing technology, open-source data release, and prompt crowd-sourced analyses. In less than a week, these studies revealed that the outbreak strain belonged to an enteroaggregative E. coli lineage that had acquired genes for Shiga toxin 2 and for antibiotic resistance

The gut microbiome in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

The gut microbiota may play a role in cardiovascular diseases. Here, the authors perform a metagenome-wide association study on stools from individuals with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and healthy controls, identifying microbial strains and functions associated with the disease

SOA and Quality

This thesis emphasizes on investigating the relationship between the quality attributes and service oriented architecture (SOA). Due to quality attributes requirements drive the design of software architecture, it is necessary to maintain the positive quality of SOA and improve the negative quality of SOA. This thesis gives an introduction to SOA, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and MULE. Then, it covers information on quality of systems and tactics for achieving each quality attribute. Finally, we discuss the quality of SOA in detail, and illustrate how to set up a SOA and how to improve its quality using a case of an order for supermarket.Order of supermarke

An Iridoid Glucoside and the Related Aglycones from <i>Cornus florida</i>

A new iridoid glucoside, cornusoside A (<b>1</b>), and four new natural product iridoid aglycones, cornolactones A–D (<b>2</b>–<b>5</b>), together with 10 known compounds were isolated from the leaves of <i>Cornus florida</i>. The structures of compounds <b>1</b>–<b>5</b> were established by interpretation of their spectroscopic data. Cornolactone B (<b>3</b>) is the first natural <i>cis</i>-fused tricyclic dilactone iridoid containing both a five- and a six-membered lactone ring. A biosynthesis pathway is proposed for cornolactones C (<b>4</b>) and D (<b>5</b>), the C-6 epimers of compounds <b>1</b>–<b>3</b>

Application of Improved Random Forest Variables Importance Measure to Traditional Chinese Chronic Gastritis Diagnosis

Many machine learning approaches have been proposed to establish the chronic gastritis diagnostic models. But till now, most of the machine-learning classifiers do not give any insight as to which features play key roles with respect to the derived classifier as well as the individual class. Recently, the variables importance measure yielded by random forest (RF) has been proposed in many applications. However, in multi-label classifications RF attempts to yield a common feature ranking for all classes, which fail in identifying the distinct predictive structures for individual class, This paper developed an improved random forest variables importance measure to evaluate the importance of features according to each individual class in multi-classification problem, and then applied a wrapper method for feature selection to construct the key features sets referring to each subtype of the chronic gastritis. Experiment results show that, compared with the previous studies, the selected features are more close to expert knowledge and contribute to better understanding of the underlying process that characterize the chronic gastritis

Oxidation-Resistant Acidic Resins Prepared by Partial Carbonization as Cocatalysts in Synthesis of Adipic Acid

The oxidation-resistant acidic resins are of great importance for the catalytic oxidation systems. In this paper, the oxidatively stable acidic resins are obtained from the cation ion exchange resins (CIERs) through the thermal treatment in N₂ atmosphere. The structure and properties of the thermally treated CIERs were characterized by chemical analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT–IR) spectra, acid capacity measurement and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The thermally treated CIERs possess high acid capacity up to 4.09 mmol g^–1. A partial carbonization is observed in the thermal treatment process of CIERs, but the morphology of resin spheres maintains well. The as-prepared CIERs are used as solid acids to assist the hydrogen peroxide oxidation of cyclohexene to adipic acid (ADA) with tungstic acid as the catalyst precursor. The improved yields of ADA in the recycling reaction are obtained in the presence of acidic CIERs. Meanwhile, the unproductive decomposition of H₂O₂ is effectively suppressed. The high yields of ADA (about 81%) are kept by the thermally treated CIERs even after the fifth cycle. The thermally treated CIERs exhibit excellent acid-catalytic performance and possess remarkable oxidation-resistant capability