Pediatric intensive care unit treatment alters the diversity and composition of the gut microbiota and antimicrobial resistance gene expression in critically ill children

IntroductionCommon critical illnesses are a growing economic burden on healthcare worldwide. However, therapies targeting the gut microbiota for critical illnesses have not been developed on a large scale. This study aimed to investigate the changes in the characteristics of the gut microbiota in critically ill children after short-term pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) treatments.MethodsAnal swab samples were prospectively collected from March 2021 to March 2022 from children admitted to the PICU of Xinhua Hospital who received broad-spectrum antibiotics on days 1 (the D1 group) and 7 (the D7 group) of the PICU treatment. The structural and functional characteristics of the gut microbiota of critically ill children were explored using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) technology, and a comparative analysis of samples from D1 and D7 was conducted.ResultsAfter 7 days of PICU admission, a significant decrease was noted in the richness of the gut microbiota in critically ill children, while the bacterial diversity and the community structure between groups remained stable to some extent. The relative abundance of Bacilli and Lactobacillales was significantly higher, and that of Campylobacter hominis was significantly lower in the D7 group than in the D1 group. The random forest model revealed that Prevotella coporis and Enterobacter cloacae were bacterial biomarkers between groups. LEfSe revealed that two Gene Ontology entries, GO:0071555 (cell wall organization) and GO:005508 (transmembrane transport), changed significantly after the short-term treatment in the PICU. In addition, 30 KEGG pathways were mainly related to the activity of enzymes and proteins during the processes of metabolism, DNA catabolism and repair, and substance transport. Finally, 31 antimicrobial resistance genes had significantly different levels between the D7 and D1 groups. The top 10 up-regulated genes were Erm(A), ErmX, LptD, eptB, SAT-4, tetO, adeJ, adeF, APH(3′)-IIIa, and tetM.ConclusionThe composition, gene function, and resistance genes of gut microbiota of critically ill children can change significantly after short PICU treatments. Our findings provide a substantial basis for a better understanding of the structure and function of gut microbiota and their role in critical illnesses

LTE Frequency Hopping Jammer

The goal of this project was to show that communication with a cellular base station and user equipment could be interfered with using narrowband jamming. Specifically, a randomized frequency hopping jammer was used as the main method to disrupt service. The testbed was built with OpenAirInterface, software-defined radios, and a Samsung s4 phone. It was found to be possible to greatly disrupt communications in an LTE system with a jammer

Redesigning and Expanding WPI’s Summer STEM Programs for Middle School Girls

The underrepresentation of females in STEM fields limits innovation. The purpose of this project was to develop resources for the Office of Pre-Collegiate Outreach Programs at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to aid them in their expansion of summer STEM programs, increasing opportunities for middle school girls to get involved as well as increasing female engagement in STEM. We analyzed the effectiveness of previous activities and developed 25 modules as frameworks for designing effective STEM outreach programs for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade girls

Comparison of nine growth curve models to describe growth of partridges(Alectoris chukar)

In this study, nine non linear growth curve models were used to determine the goodness of fit by the body weight measurements of the total number of 178 partridges(Alectoris chukar), 93 females, and 85 males, respectively. The R2(coefficients of determination) values for the total partridges, females and males in Brody, Gompertz, Logistic, von Bertalanffy, asymptote regression,exponential, Monomolecular, Richards and Weibull-type were 0.985, 0.980 and 0.984, 0.997, 0.998 and 0.998, 0.996, 0.999 and 0.999, 0.995, 0.995 and 0.996, 0.985, 0.980 and 0.984, 0.891, 0.871 and 0.892, 0.985, 0.980 and 0.984, 0.997, 0.999 and 0.999, 0.997, 0.999 and 0.999, respectively. The R2 values for Gompertz, Logistic, von Bertalanffy, Richards and Weibull-type were >0.99, while the exponential (<0.90) had the lowest. What’s more, the Gompertz, Logistic, Richards and Weibull-type models best described the data because of lower MSE (mean square error), AIC(Akaike’s information criteria) and BIC(Schwarz Bayesian information criterion), higher adj. R2(Adjusted coefficient of determination) and r(the correlation coefficient between measured body weight and estimated body weight) and there was not an autocorrelation between the residual values. As a result, based on goodness of fit criteria; R2, adj.R2, MSE, r, AIC, BIC values, the Weibull-type model best described live weight data of the Partridges(Alectoris chukar)

Analog–Digital Combined High-Secure Optical Communication System Based on Chaotic Circuit Driving

We propose and demonstrate a new analog–digital combined high-secure optical communication system based on chaotic circuit driving, which achieves encryption in the analog and digital domains. A 3D chaotic system is used for analog domain phase encryption (ADPE) and digital domain time–frequency encryption (DDTFE) simultaneously. The ADPE is carried out by the privately chaotic signal driving the phase modulator (PM), which realizes chaotic phase encryption. The chaotic circuit comprehends highly complex nonlinear dynamics. Its size is 10 cm × 5 cm, which has the characteristics of small size and low cost. The DDTFE is performed by the frequency–time encryption of signals in the digital domain. The experimental results show that the optical physical layer encryption scheme based on analog and digital combination can successfully mask the original data. The driving signal of PM is that generated by the chaotic circuit and needs to be privately synchronized, so that the legal receiver may accurately decrypt the encrypted data and the eavesdropper is unable to intercept a valuable message. If the chaotic driving circuit produces a delay of 3 s, the bit error rate (BER) reaches more than 0.3 at the receiver. The results of experiment verify that the scheme can transmit 13.3 Gb/s 16 quadrature amplitude modulation orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (16QAM-OFDM) signal over 25 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF). This scheme achieves low-cost, high-security communication, making it a suitable foundation for high-speed, secure optical communication at the physical layer