Characterization of a new feather-degrading bacterium from Calotes versicolor feces

A total of 842 spore-forming strains were isolated from 221 animal feces samples, in which a new feather-degrading bacterium identified as Bacillus sp. 50-3 based on morphological, biochemical and 16S rDNA tests was isolated from Calotes versicolor (an agamid lizard) feces. The bacterium can degrade native feather completely at mild conditions and in much shorter time (36 h) when using chicken feather as the sole carbon and nitrogen source. It presented optimum growth and maximum keratinase activity (680±25 U/ml, 36 h) at 37°C and pH 7.0 in feather meal medium. The keratinase of Bacillus sp. 50-3 was active on feather keratin as substrate and presented optimum additive quantity of 1.0% (w/v). So the high efficiency of Bacillus sp. 50-3 on feather-degradation suggested its potential use in biotechnological processes, especially in decreasing the environment pollution.Keywords: Animal feces, Bacillus, chicken feathers, keratinase, optimum conditions

Observation on health quality of life before and after the injection of antiangiogenic drug in vitreous cavity to patients with wet age-related macular degeneration

AbstractObjectiveTo explore the vision related health quality-of-life before and after the injection of antiangiogenic drug in vitreous cavity to patients with wet-AMD.MethodsThe 2000 edition of Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25 issued by National Eye Institute is applied, and the VRQL evaluation is conducted on the initial diagnosed patients with wet-AMD before and after the injection of ranibizumab drugs in vitreous cavity.ResultsAmong the wet-AMD patients, patients with better distance visual acuity before the intravitreal injection get lower VFQ-25 score; while after the vitreous cavity injection, the VFQ-25 questionnaire score is related to the explanation and nursing of doctors and nurses towards patients, the better the nursing, the higher the score.ConclusionBefore vitreous cavity injection, the degree of distance visual acuity is an important factor affecting VRQL of wet-AMD patients, in addition, the explanation and nursing of doctors and nurses toward patients during pre-operation, intra-operation and post-operation of intravitreal injection are also the import factors affecting VROL

Phenol Adsorption on Nitrogen-Enriched Activated Carbon from Wood Fiberboard Waste

Nitrogen-enriched activated carbons were prepared from wood fiberboard waste using 50% potassium hydroxide solution. Activated carbons were obtained with an impregnation ratio (gram chemical agent/gram wood fiberboard waste) of 3 in 850°C activation temperature carbonized for 60 min. Nitrogen content in activated carbon was 1.33% by analysis. Effects of contact time, pH, adsorbent dosage level, and temperature on phenol adsorption capacity of activated carbons were investigated. Adsorption equilibrium was achieved within 100 min at the given phenol concentration of 250 mg/L. When 0.1 g of the carbon absorbent and 100 mL of phenol solution at 250 mg/L were used, maximum adsorption capacity of phenol on activated carbon can reach 207 mg/g. The kinetics of phenol adsorption followed nicely the pseudo-second-order rate expression. In the adsorption isotherm, the Langmuir model fit better than the Freundlich model in phenol adsorption. This study suggests that nitrogen-enriched activated carbon prepared from wood fiberboard waste can be used effectively for removal of phenol compounds from aqueous solutions

Dynamical properties of quasiparticles in a tunable Kekul\'{e} graphene superlattice

We investigate the dynamical properties of quasiparticles in graphene superlattices with three typical Kekul\'{e} distortions (i.e., Kekul\'{e}-O, Kekul\'{e}-Y and Kekul\'{e}-M). On the one hand, we numerically show the visualized evolution process of Kekul\'{e} quasiparticles; while on the other hand, we analytically obtain the centroid trajectory of the quasiparticles, and both of them agree well with each other. The results reveal that the relativistic Zitterbewegung (ZB) phenomenon occurs in the Kekul\'{e} systems. Furthermore, through analyzing the frequency of ZB, we unveil the one-to-one relationship between ZB and Kekul\'{e} textures, i.e., the ZB frequenies of Kekul\'{e}-O, Kekul\'{e}-Y and Kekul\'{e}-M quasiparticles feature single, double and six frequencies, respectively. Finally, we propose a scheme to distinguish among different Kekul\'{e} textures from the dynamical perspective. The predictions in this paper are expected to be experimentally verified in the near future, so as to facilitate further research of Kekul\'{e} structures in solid materials or artificial systems

AdaNAS: Adaptively Post-processing with Self-supervised Neural Architecture Search for Ensemble Rainfall Forecasts

Previous post-processing studies on rainfall forecasts using numerical weather prediction (NWP) mainly focus on statistics-based aspects, while learning-based aspects are rarely investigated. Although some manually-designed models are proposed to raise accuracy, they are customized networks, which need to be repeatedly tried and verified, at a huge cost in time and labor. Therefore, a self-supervised neural architecture search (NAS) method without significant manual efforts called AdaNAS is proposed in this study to perform rainfall forecast post-processing and predict rainfall with high accuracy. In addition, we design a rainfall-aware search space to significantly improve forecasts for high-rainfall areas. Furthermore, we propose a rainfall-level regularization function to eliminate the effect of noise data during the training. Validation experiments have been performed under the cases of \emph{None}, \emph{Light}, \emph{Moderate}, \emph{Heavy} and \emph{Violent} on a large-scale precipitation benchmark named TIGGE. Finally, the average mean-absolute error (MAE) and average root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the proposed AdaNAS model are 0.98 and 2.04 mm/day, respectively. Additionally, the proposed AdaNAS model is compared with other neural architecture search methods and previous studies. Compared results reveal the satisfactory performance and superiority of the proposed AdaNAS model in terms of precipitation amount prediction and intensity classification. Concretely, the proposed AdaNAS model outperformed previous best-performing manual methods with MAE and RMSE improving by 80.5\% and 80.3\%, respectively

Combination of capecitabine and ludartin inhibits colon cancer growth in mice

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of capecitabine and ludartin in the treatment of colon cancer in mice.Methods: Mice model of colon cancer was used in this study. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (Qrt-PCR) was used to quantify the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA. Micro-vessel density was assessed using immunohistochemical analysis.Results: When administered separately, capecitabine and ludartin treatments significantly suppressed tumor growth in the mice model of colon cancer for 4 weeks, compared to control group. Coadministration of capecitabine and ludartin significantly inhibited tumor growth for 6 weeks (p < 0.05). Symptoms of colon cancer such as weight loss, skin discoloration and leukopenia were observed in untreated control group. However, these symptoms were completely absent in the group treated with combination of capecitabine and ludartin. The combined treatment also prevented colon cancer-induced increase in white blood cell (WBC) count, and increased median survival time of colon cancer mice from 38 to 55 days. Expression of VEGF in combination (capecitabine + ludartin) treatment group was significantly lower than in the control, i.e., untreated group (p ˂ 0.05). The combination treatment group also had significantly lower micro-vessel density in the tumor tissues, compared to the  ntreated control mice (p < 0.05).Conclusion: These results show that a combination treatment of capecitabine and ludartin effectively inhibits colon tumor growth and angiogenesis in mice via a mechanism involving suppression of VEGF expression. Thus, capecitabine and ludartin combination is a potentially  uitable treatment for colon cancer.Keywords: Colon cancer, Mice, Ludartin, Leukopenia, VEGF expression, Angiogenesi

Genos: General In-Network Unsupervised Intrusion Detection by Rule Extraction

Anomaly-based network intrusion detection systems (A-NIDS) use unsupervised models to detect unforeseen attacks. However, existing A-NIDS solutions suffer from low throughput, lack of interpretability, and high maintenance costs. Recent in-network intelligence (INI) exploits programmable switches to offer line-rate deployment of NIDS. Nevertheless, current in-network NIDS are either model-specific or only apply to supervised models. In this paper, we propose Genos, a general in-network framework for unsupervised A-NIDS by rule extraction, which consists of a Model Compiler, a Model Interpreter, and a Model Debugger. Specifically, observing benign data are multimodal and usually located in multiple subspaces in the feature space, we utilize a divide-and-conquer approach for model-agnostic rule extraction. In the Model Compiler, we first propose a tree-based clustering algorithm to partition the feature space into subspaces, then design a decision boundary estimation mechanism to approximate the source model in each subspace. The Model Interpreter interprets predictions by important attributes to aid network operators in understanding the predictions. The Model Debugger conducts incremental updating to rectify errors by only fine-tuning rules on affected subspaces, thus reducing maintenance costs. We implement a prototype using physical hardware, and experiments demonstrate its superior performance of 100 Gbps throughput, great interpretability, and trivial updating overhead.Comment: accepted by IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2024

1-Methyl-3-n-tetra­decyl­imidazolium bromide monohydrate

In the title ionic liquid salt hydrate, C18H35N2 +·Br−·H2O, the side chain in the cation has an extended conformation. The crystal structure is stabilized primarily by O—H⋯Br hydrogen bonds. C—H⋯O and C—H⋯Br inter­actions are also present

Effect of early vitrectomy combined with silicone oil tamponade for severe infectious traumatized endophthalmitis

AIM: To explore the relations of clinical efficacy and surgical timing of vitrectomy combined with silicone oil tamponade for severe infectious traumatized endophthalmitis.<p>METHODS: Totally 59 patients(59 eyes)with severe infectious traumatized endophthalmitis accepted vitrectomy combined with silicone oil tamponade. Patients were divided into two groups by different surgical timing. Group A accepted operation in 24 hours. Group B accepted operation 24 hours after injury. Retina status during operation, clinical efficacy and best-corrected visual acuity were observed and recorded. <p>RESULTS: The cases of early operation group got lesser retina injury and higher efficacy and better best-corrected visual acuity. <p>CONCLUSION:Vitrectomy combined with silicone oil tamponade is an effective way to cure severe infected traumatized endophthalmitis. Early surgical treatment is the key to achieve better effect