Kin selection, quorum sensing and virulence in pathogenic bacteria

Bacterial growth and virulence often depends upon the cooperative release of extracellular factors excreted in response to quorum sensing (QS).We carried out an in vivo selection experiment in mice to examine how QS evolves in response to variation in relatedness (strain diversity), and the consequences for virulence. We started our experiment with two bacterial strains: a wild-type that both produces and responds to QS signal molecules, and a lasR (signal-blind) mutant that does not release extracellular factors in response to signal. We found that: (i) QS leads to greater growth within hosts; (ii) high relatedness favours the QS wild-type; and (iii) low relatedness favours the lasR mutant. Relatedness matters in our experiment because, at relatively low relatedness, the lasR mutant is able to exploit the extracellular factors produced by the cells that respond to QS, and hence increase in frequency. Furthermore, our results suggest that because a higher relatedness favours cooperative QS, and hence leads to higher growth, this will also lead to a higher virulence, giving a relationship between relatedness and virulence that is in the opposite direction to that usually predicted by virulence theory

CARRT - Motion Capture Data for Robotic Human Upper Body Model

As advancements in the study of human activity have progressed in recent years, researchers have directed their attention towards analyzing human daily activities to investigate a diverse range of performance metrics unconsciously optimized by individuals while engaged in specific tasks. To replicate these movements in robotic systems based on human models, researchers have developed a framework for robot motion planning capable of utilizing various optimization methods to reproduce such motions through human demonstrations. In this process, capturing the movements of the human body and the objects involved in the demonstrations is imperative, as they provide essential information for the motion planning procedure. The objective of this dataset is to present human motion data while performing activities of daily living. This dataset encompasses comprehensive and precise whole-body motion data of individuals collected using a Vicon motion capture system, which facilitated the development of a full-body model integrated into OpenSim and MATLAB. The dataset comprises nine different daily living activities and eight Range of Motion activities performed by ten healthy participants. A publicly accessible whole-body human motion database has been established, encompassing raw motion data in .c3d format, motion data in .csv format for the OpenSim model, and post-processed motion data for the MATLAB model

Biomimetic Approaches for Human Arm Motion Generation: Literature Review and Future Directions

In recent years, numerous studies have been conducted to analyze how humans subconsciously optimize various performance criteria while performing a particular task, which has led to the development of robots that are capable of performing tasks with a similar level of efficiency as humans. The complexity of the human body has led researchers to create a framework for robot motion planning to recreate those motions in robotic systems using various redundancy resolution methods. This study conducts a thorough analysis of the relevant literature to provide a detailed exploration of the different redundancy resolution methodologies used in motion generation for mimicking human motion. The studies are investigated and categorized according to the study methodology and various redundancy resolution methods. An examination of the literature revealed a strong trend toward formulating intrinsic strategies that govern human movement through machine learning and artificial intelligence. Subsequently, the paper critically evaluates the existing approaches and highlights their limitations. It also identifies the potential research areas that hold promise for future investigations

Contamination of Unused, Nonsterile Gloves in the Critical Care Setting: A Comparison of Bacterial Glove Contamination in Medical, Surgical and Burn Intensive Care Units

Objective: To assess the rate and burden of bacterial contamination on unused, nonsterile gloves found in glove boxes in three different specialty intensive care units (ICUs). Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study Setting: A burn, trauma/surgical, and medical ICU in a 412-bed tertiary care hospital. Subjects: Convenience sample of 90 non-sterile vinyl exam glove pairs Methods: Thirty occupied rooms in each ICU were utilized for collection of glove pair samples. Gloves from opened glove boxes placed in wall-mounted racks for use by healthcare staff were donned by one investigator in a routine, aseptic fashion. The surfaces of both gloves were swabbed, plated onto a contact agar plate and incubated for 48 hours. Resulting colony forming units (CFUs) were counted and recorded for each glove pair sample. Results: Bacterial contaminants were cultured from 73 of 90 (81.1%) glove pairs sampled across all ICUs. Contamination rates of glove samples from the BICU, SICU and MICU were 66.7%, 86.7% and 90.0% respectively. The differences in contamination rate among units was statistically significant (p=0.044). The average contamination burden was 5.83 CFU per glove pair and was not significantly different among units. Conclusions: Despite differences in infection control practices and the composition of pathologies managed in each ICU, the average bioburden of gloves left exposed in the environment was not significantly different. Further research is needed to assess for an association of glove bioburden with nosocomial infection rates and the effects of different infection control practices on the reduction of glove bioburdens

Live Audiovisual Remote Assistance System (LARAS) for Person with Visual Impairments

According to The World Report on Vision by World Health Organization (WHO) [1], there are more than 2.2 billion people who have near or distant vision Impairments, out of which 36 million people are classified as entirely blind. This report also emphasizes the importance of social and communal support in enabling individuals with vision impairments to integrate into society and reach their full potential. While performing daily activities and navigating the environment, people with visual impairments (PVIs) often require direct or synchronous assistance [2]. Consequently, there is a growing need for automated solutions to assist in this regard. However, existing automated solutions can provide limited assistance with limited reliability [3]. Although assistants and caregivers can help PVIs when they have the time and they are able to be physically present onsite, other assistants may have the time to help, but no means to be physically present onsite to help (such as a friend with disabilities or an elderly family member who may not be physically able to help onsite). In this context, remote help can be utilized to provide PVIs with the help they need from persons who want to help but can’t be physically there in person. In this paper, our team designed a wearable hat equipped with a camera system to facilitate remote audiovisual communication between a visually impaired user and a remote assistant. The hat features three 120-degree cameras positioned around its rim and houses electrical components discreetly within its structure. A mobile application installed on both the user\u27s and the assistant\u27s smartphones provides two-way audio communication. The user with visual impairments can request assistance from a pool of registered assistants who can control the camera feed on the user’s hat and provide live guidance. This hat-based camera system enables real-time assistance for the visually impaired to perform daily activities such as job-related tasks, shopping tasks, meal preparation tasks, street navigation tasks, and other tasks. A hat-based design and remote assistance allow for a flexible and comprehensive solution to meet the needs of individuals with visual impairments and provides assistants the capability of remotely helping PVIs

Prevalence of Multiple Antibiotic Resistant Infections in Diabetic versus Nondiabetic Wounds

Diabetes mellitus (DM) affects 23.6 million people in the USA and approximately 20–25% of diabetic patients will develop foot ulceration during the course of their disease. Up to a quarter of these patients will develop infections that will necessitate amputation. Although many studies report that the rates of antibiotic resistant infections have increased dramatically in the DM population over the last decade, to our knowledge there have been no reports directly comparing the rates of antibiotic resistant infections in DM versus non-DM wounds. We performed a retrospective study comparing the wound infections of 41 DM patients to those of 74 non-DM patients to test the hypothesis that infections with multidrug resistant organisms (MDRO) were more prevalent in the DM population. We found that 63.4% of DM and 50% of non-DM patients had MDRO infections, which was not statistically different. However, 61% of the DM patients had Pseudomonas infections compared to only 18.9% of non-DM patients. Furthermore, DM patients had significantly more coinfections with both Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus aureus. Though our initial hypothesis was incorrect, we demonstrated a significant correlation between Pseudomonas and Pseudomonas/S. aureus coinfections within DM wounds