Genome sequence of Christensenella minuta DSM 22607T

Obesity influences and is influenced by the human gut microbiome. Here, we present the genome of Christensenella minuta, a highly heritable bacterial species which has been found to be strongly associated with obesity through an unknown biological mechanism. This novel genome provides a valuable resource for future obesity therapeutic studies

GPI PSF subtraction with TLOCI: the next evolution in exoplanet/disk high-contrast imaging

To directly image exoplanets and faint circumstellar disks, the noisy stellar halo must be suppressed to a high level. To achieve this feat, the angular differential imaging observing technique and the least-squares Locally Optimized Combination of Images (LOCI) algorithm have now become the standard in single band direct imaging observations and data reduction. With the development and commissioning of new high-order high-contrast adaptive optics equipped with integral field units, the image subtraction algorithm needs to be modified to allow the optimal use of polychromatic images, field-rotated images and archival data. A new algorithm, TLOCI (for Template LOCI), is designed to achieve this task by maximizing a companion signal-to-noise ratio instead of simply minimizing the noise as in the original LOCI algorithm. The TLOCI technique uses an input spectrum and template Point Spread Functions (PSFs, generated from unocculted and unsaturated stellar images) to optimize the reference image least-squares coefficients to minimize the planet self-subtraction, thus maximizing its throughput per wavelength, while simultaneously providing a maximum suppression of the speckle noise. The new algorithm has been developed using on-sky GPI data and has achieved impressive contrast. This paper presents the TLOCI algorithm, on-sky performance, and will discuss the challenges in recovering the planet spectrum with high fidelity.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Proceedings of SPIE 914

Teaching/Learning: The Student Viewpoint

Learning is a vital aspect in the life of every individual. To some it comes, easily, but to others it does not. Why this happens depends on several interrelated factors. Among them are home environment and parental support, individual capabilities/potential including mental maturity and personal drive, and school/educational classroom methodology or procedures. The latter point is the focus of this paper

Alcaloides de las hojas de Sophora macrocarpa

El alcaloide principal de las hojas de Sophora macrocarpa Sm. es la matrina. También fueron aisladas e identificadas N-metilcitisina y citisina, asi como el N-óxido de matrina y el soforanol ( 5a-hidroximatrina). Los espectros de rmnde 1H a 200M Hz permitieron extender la lista de asignaciones publicadas para estos compuestos

Assessing Child Obesity and Physical Activity in a Hard-to-Reach Population in California's Central Valley, 2012-2013.

IntroductionIn California's agricultural Central Valley, the rate of childhood obesity is higher than the national average. Adequate physical activity contributes to obesity prevention and its assessment is useful to evaluate the impact of interventions.MethodsNiños Sanos, Familia Sana (Healthy Children, Healthy Family [NSFS]) uses community-based participatory research to implement an intervention program to reduce childhood obesity among people of Mexican origin in the Central Valley. Anthropometric measurements were conducted on more than 650 children enrolled in NSFS. Physical activity data from a subgroup of children aged 4 to 7 years (n = 134) were collected via a wearable accelerometer.ResultsChildren were classified on the basis of age and sex-adjusted body mass index as healthy weight (57.7%); overweight (19.3%), or obese (23%). Logistic regression showed that moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was associated with a child's likelihood of having a healthy BMI (odds ratio: 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.05; P = .017).ConclusionNSFS's community-based participatory approach resulted in successful use of a commercial electronic device to measure physical activity quantity and quality in this hard-to-reach population. Promotion of adequate daily MVPA is an appropriate and necessary component of NSFS's childhood obesity prevention strategy

Improving Novel Gene Discovery in High-Throughput Gene Expression Datasets

High-throughput gene expression datasets (including RNA-seq and microarray datasets) can quantify the expression level of tens of thousands of genes in an organism, which allows for the identification of putative functions for previously unstudied genes involved in treatment/condition responses. For static (single timepoint) high-throughput gene expression experiments, the most common first analysis step to discover novel genes is to filter out genes based on their degree of differential expression and the amount of inter-replicate noise. However, this filtering step may remove genes with very high baseline expression levels, and genes with important functional annotations in the experiment being studied. Chapter 2 presents a novel knowledge-based clustering approach for novel gene discovery, in which known functionally important genes as well as genes with very high expression levels (which would typically be removed by a strict fold change filter) are saved prior to filtering

Cell death and transcriptional responses induced in larvae of the nematode Haemonchus contortus by toxins/toxicants with broad phylogenetic efficacy

Establishing methods to investigate treatments that induce cell death in parasitic nematodes will promote experimental approaches to elucidate mechanisms and to identify prospective anthelmintics capable of inducing this outcome. Here, we extended recent progress on a method to monitor cell death and to identify small molecule inhibitors i

Transport of Escherichia coli through soil / by Bruce Rosa.

Sorption is an important process in the retention of pathogens by clay barriers. Batch sorption experiments were conducted to investigate the sorption of nonpathogenic 'E. coli' to illite, kaolinite, and montmorillonite clays, a natural red clay, a silt and a sand. The Freundlich isotherm model provides the best fit for the sorption data. The sorptive capacity (SC) of each soil for 'E. coli' was calculated at an equilibrium ' E. coli' concentration of 1 x 108 CFU/mL. The SC values correlate strongly with the measured cation exchange capacity (having an R 2 of 0.92), as well as the weighted average particle size (having an R2 of 0.83), of the soils. Columns of compacted and normally consolidated high plastic clay and compacted non-plastic silt soils were exposed to cycles of freezing and thawing to simulate conditions of physical weathering, in turn creating a fracture network in the specimens. To determine bacterial transport properties, these columns, as well as intact sand, were permeated with a nonpathogenic E. coli strain suspended in a minimal salt medium in a constant head permeability mode. As a result of freezing and thawing, the permeability of the soil columns was found to increase by one order of magnitude for the silt and two to three orders of magnitude for the normally consolidated and compacted clay columns. Full (100%) breakthrough of the E coli was observed after three pore volumes of flow in the sand, 35 pore volumes of flow in the silt, and was not observed in both compacted and normally consolidated clay columns, even after as many as 55 pore volumes of flow. However, as many as 5 x 10[superscript 5] CFU/mL of E. coli were found to permeate through clay columns, indicating a possible public health risk from bacterial transport through freeze-fractured soil liners. Both sorption and filtration through soil were found to be important factors in determining bacterial transport through fine grained soils

Preclinical Studies on Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Therapy for Growth Plate Cartilage Injury Repair

In the last two decades, there has been a strong interest in searching for biological treatments for regeneration of injured growth plate cartilage and prevention of its bony repair. Various means have been tried, including implantation of chondrocytes, mesenchymal stem cell (MSC), together with exogenous growth factor and scaffolds, and gene therapy. However, with the lack of success with chondrocytes, more research has focussed on MSC-based treatments. In addition to circumvent limitations with MSC-based treatments (including cell harvest-associated morbidity, difficulties/time/cost involved in MSC isolation and ex vivo expansion, and potential disease transmission), mobilising endogenous MSCs to the growth plate injury site and enhancing in situ regeneration mechanisms would represent an alternative attractive approach. Further studies are required to investigate the potential particularly in large animal models or clinical setting of the ex vivo MSC approach and the feasibility of the endogenous MSC in situ approach in growth plate regeneration