Effect of Nitrate, Acetate and Hydrogen on Native Perchlorate-reducing Microbial Communities and Their Activity in Vadose Soil

The effect of nitrate, acetate, and hydrogen on native perchlorate-reducing bacteria (PRB) was examined by conducting microcosm tests using vadose soil collected from a perchlorate-contaminated site. The rate of perchlorate reduction was enhanced by hydrogen amendment and inhibited by acetate amendment, compared with unamendment. Nitrate was reduced before perchlorate in all amendments. In hydrogen-amended and unamended soils, nitrate delayed perchlorate reduction, suggesting that the PRB preferentially use nitrate as an electron acceptor. In contrast, nitrate eliminated the inhibitory effect of acetate amendment on perchlorate reduction and increased the rate and the extent, possibly because the preceding nitrate reduction/denitrification decreased the acetate concentration that was inhibitory to the native PRB. In hydrogen-amended and unamended soils, perchlorate reductase gene (pcrA) copies, representing PRB densities, increased with either perchlorate or nitrate reduction, suggesting that either perchlorate or nitrate stimulates the growth of the PRB. In contrast, in acetate-amended soil pcrA increased only when perchlorate was depleted: a large portion of the PRB may have not utilized nitrate in this amendment. Nitrate addition did not alter the distribution of the dominant pcrA clones in hydrogen-amended soil, likely because of the functional redundancy of PRB as nitrate-reducers/denitrifiers, whereas acetate selected different pcrA clones from those with hydrogen amendment

One-shot Network Pruning at Initialization with Discriminative Image Patches

One-shot Network Pruning at Initialization (OPaI) is an effective method to decrease network pruning costs. Recently, there is a growing belief that data is unnecessary in OPaI. However, we obtain an opposite conclusion by ablation experiments in two representative OPaI methods, SNIP and GraSP. Specifically, we find that informative data is crucial to enhancing pruning performance. In this paper, we propose two novel methods, Discriminative One-shot Network Pruning (DOP) and Super Stitching, to prune the network by high-level visual discriminative image patches. Our contributions are as follows. (1) Extensive experiments reveal that OPaI is data-dependent. (2) Super Stitching performs significantly better than the original OPaI method on benchmark ImageNet, especially in a highly compressed model.Comment: BMVC 202

Acute myocarditis in dengue hemorrhagic fever: a case report and review of cardiac complications in dengue-affected patients

SummaryWe report a case of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) complicated by acute myocarditis and review the literature. A 65-year-old woman experienced DHF due to dengue virus serotype 3, complicated with acute myocarditis and acute pulmonary edema. Clinically this masqueraded as acute myocardial infarction, with an electrocardiographically depressed ST segment in precordial leads and elevated serum cardiac-specific troponin I level. Under supportive management, the patient recovered 3 days later. A total of 18 pertinent articles involving 339 dengue-affected patients with cardiac complications were found by PubMed search. Clinical manifestations of cardiac complications varied considerably, from self-limiting tachy–brady arrhythmia to severe myocardial damage, leading to hypotension and pulmonary edema. Although rare, a fatal outcome was reported in some cases of dengue with cardiac complications. To avoid otherwise preventable morbidity and mortality, physicians should have a high index of suspicion for cardiac complications in patients with dengue illness and should manage this accordingly

Development Of Multi-Controlled Floor Vacuum Cleaner Using RF Energy Harvesting

This paper investigated Multi-Controlled Floor Vacuum Cleaner power by Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting. Eco-friendly technology brings advance to this new era of technology. The energy consumption of electric is not environmentally friendly. To overcome the problem, implementing Radio Frequency Harvesting Energy to convert in to electric and power up electronic appliances. There are many automatic cleaner robot selling in the market nowadays. However the mostly use of infrared had a limitation in coverage; the robotic using Wi-Fi has a wider coverage. The uses of application also brings the coverage wider which can connect wherever the place have Wi-Fi connection or mobile data available. This benefits can brings more convenient to user can connect wherever they are. This project is started with an objective of develop a multi controlled floor vacuum cleaner using Wi-Fi. In order to make the system smart, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module used to have the internet connection. The prototype of project is developed by using Arduino Uno act as the main controller, L293D motor driver, and ultrasonic sensor. Besides that, Arduino IDE was used to write the program of the robot while Blynk apps use as a controller server. Through the project, this integrated design has performance for cleaning purpose in terms of user-friendly, convenient and eco-friendly

Identification of the NLS and NES motifs of VP2 from chicken anemia virus and the interaction of VP2 with mini-chromosome maintenance protein 3

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>VP2 of chicken anemia virus (CAV) is a dual-specificity phosphatase required for virus infection, assembly and replication. The functions of the nuclear localization signal (NLS) and nuclear export signal (NES) of VP2 in the cell, however, are poorly understood. Our study identified the presence of a NLS in VP2 and showed that the protein interacted significantly with mini-chromosome maintenance protein 3 (MCM3) in the cell.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An arginine-lysine rich NLS could be predicted by software and spanned from amino acids 133 to 138 of VP2. The critical amino acids residues between positions 136 and 138, and either residue 133 or 134 are important for nuclear import in mammalian cells based on systematic mutagenesis. A NES is also predicted in VP2; however the results suggest that no functional NES is present and that this protein is CRM1 independent. It was also shown that VP2 is a chromatin binding protein and, notably, using a co-immunoprecipitation assay, it was found that VP2 association with MCM3 and that this interaction does not require DSP activity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>VP2 contains a NLS that span from amino acids 133 to 138. VP2 is a CRM1 independent protein during nuclear export and associates with MCM3 in cells.</p

DC-SIGN (CD209) Promoter −336 A/G Polymorphism Is Associated with Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever and Correlated to DC-SIGN Expression and Immune Augmentation

Dengue fever (DF) is an arthropod-borne disease that is prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. DC-SIGN [dendritic cell-specific intercellular adhesion molecule 3 (ICAM-3)-grabbing non-integrin] is a major receptor for dengue infection. DC-SIGN, also called CD209, expresses on dendritic cells (DCs) that bind to ICAM-3, which is expressed on T cells to facilitate the initial interaction between DCs and T cells. Variations in the CD209 promoter (−336 A/G; rs4804803) genotype are involved in the pathogenesis of human infectious diseases. Here we found that patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) had a higher frequency of the AG or GG genotype of rs4804803 than DF or controls. Functional studies determined that monocyte-derived DCs (MDDCs) from individuals with AG genotype had significantly higher cell surface DC-SIGN expression, associated with higher TNFα, IL-12p40, and IP-10 production, but lower viral replication than those with AA genotype. An increase in DEN-2 replication in MDDCs was observed following the addition of anti-IP-10 neutralizing antibody. These findings highlight the fact that the rs4804803 SNP in the CD209 promoter is associated with DHF and correlated to DC-SIGN expression and immune augmentation

ROR-γ drives androgen receptor expression and represents a therapeutic target in castration-resistant prostate cancer.

The androgen receptor (AR) is overexpressed and hyperactivated in human castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). However, the determinants of AR overexpression in CRPC are poorly defined. Here we show that retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γ (ROR-γ) is overexpressed and amplified in metastatic CRPC tumors, and that ROR-γ drives AR expression in the tumors. ROR-γ recruits nuclear receptor coactivator 1 and 3 (NCOA1 and NCOA3, also known as SRC-1 and SRC-3) to an AR-ROR response element (RORE) to stimulate AR gene transcription. ROR-γ antagonists suppress the expression of both AR and its variant AR-V7 in prostate cancer (PCa) cell lines and tumors. ROR-γ antagonists also markedly diminish genome-wide AR binding, H3K27ac abundance and expression of the AR target gene network. Finally, ROR-γ antagonists suppressed tumor growth in multiple AR-expressing, but not AR-negative, xenograft PCa models, and they effectively sensitized CRPC tumors to enzalutamide, without overt toxicity, in mice. Taken together, these results establish ROR-γ as a key player in CRPC by acting upstream of AR and as a potential therapeutic target for advanced PCa

Graphene-like dispersion and strong optical absorption in two-dimensional RP-type Sr3Ti2S7 perovskite

Two-dimensional (2D) Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) perovskite alloys have recently become attractive due to many desired physical properties originating from distinct van der Waals-type layered structures. In this work, a novel 2D RP-type Sr3Ti2S7 perovskite material design is proposed by using first-principles calculations. Our results reveal that the 2D Sr3Ti2S7 perovskite possesses dynamically stable structures, direct band structures with a band gap value of 0.86 eV, and a smaller effective mass (0.15/0.25 m0 for electron/hole) than MAPbI3 and phosphorene. More importantly, 2D Sr3Ti2S7 possesses wide optical spectra (from infrared-to ultraviolet-light region) and a higher absorption coefficient (105 cm–1) than MAPbI3, silicon, and MoS2 in the visible-light region. Interestingly, we also find that the ideal Dirac-like linear dispersion can appear near the Fermi level in the electronic band structures when compressive strain is applied. Especially, the Dirac-cone-like band structures can be realized when compressive strain is enhanced to −6%, indicating ultrahigh carrier mobility. These properties make the 2D Sr3Ti2S7 perovskite a promising candidate for future applications in solar cells and optoelectronic devices