Antioxidants and Antioxidant Capacity in Leafy, Stem, and Fruit Vegetables Including 50 Species

Epidemiological studies have confirmed that high intake of fruits and vegetables is associated with low incidence of many kinds of diseases, which are hypothesized to be owing to antioxidants in fruits and vegetables. In this study, three types (leafy, stem, fruit) vegetables including 50 species were systematically evaluated for their antioxidant capacity (AC) and antioxidants including total phenolic compound (TPC), total flavonoids (TF), and L-ascorbic acid (LAA). Results showed that vegetables types had no significant effects on antioxidants. Vegetables with vivid color like purple cabbage, purple dolichos lablab, purple cowpea, red pepper, yellow pepper, lotus root, and ginger ranked high in their antioxidants (TPC 32.76-117.63 mg gallic acid/g FW, TF 25.78-152.96 mg rutin/100g FW, LAA 69.11-165.44 mg/100g FW) and AC (FRAP 69.38-109.13 μmol Fe2+/100gFW, ABTS 2.19-3.75 μmol Trolox/gFW). Relatively, crown daisy, endive, celery stem, and cucumber had low antioxidants (TPC 2.66-6.29 mg gallic acid/g FW, TF 10.37-37.56 mg rutin/100g FW, LAA 14.64-39.44 mg/100g FW) and AC (FRAP 1.99-10.81 μmol Fe2+/100gFW, ABTS 0.39-0.68 μmol Trolox/gFW). TPC and LAA had strong positive correlations with AC regardless of vegetable types, while TF was positively related to AC only in leafy vegetables. The result would be valuable for both epidemiological research and dietary guidelines as these vegetables are affordable and widely available

Near-infrared photoactivatable control of Ca signaling and optogenetic immunomodulation

The application of current channelrhodopsin-based optogenetic tools is limited by the lack of strict ion selectivity and the inability to extend the spectra sensitivity into the near-infrared (NIR) tissue transmissible range. Here we present an NIR-stimulable optogenetic platform (termed Opto-CRAC ) that selectively and remotely controls Ca2+ oscillations and Ca2+-responsive gene expression to regulate the function of non-excitable cells, including T lymphocytes, macrophages and dendritic cells. When coupled to upconversion nanoparticles, the optogenetic operation window is shifted from the visible range to NIR wavelengths to enable wireless photoactivation of Ca2+-dependent signaling and optogenetic modulation of immunoinflammatory responses. In a mouse model of melanoma by using ovalbumin as surrogate tumor antigen, Opto-CRAC has been shown to act as a genetically-encoded photoactivatable adjuvant to improve antigen-specific immune responses to specifically destruct tumor cells. Our study represents a solid step forward towards the goal of achieving remote control of Ca2+-modulated activities with tailored function

Rickettsial Seroepidemiology among Farm Workers, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

High seroprevalence rates for Anaplasma phagocytophilum (8.8%), Coxiella burnetii (6.4%), Bartonella henselae (9.6%), and Rickettsia typhi (4.1%) in 365 farm workers near Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, suggest that human infections with these zoonotic bacteria are frequent and largely unrecognized. Demographic features of seropositive persons suggest distinct epidemiology, ecology, and risks

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Expert Consensus on Microtransplant for Acute Myeloid Leukemia in Elderly Patients -Report From the International Microtransplant Interest Group

Recent studies have shown that microtransplant (MST) could improve outcome of patients with elderly acute myeloid leukemia (EAML). To further standardize the MST therapy and improve outcomes in EAML patients, based on analysis of the literature on MST, especially MST with EAML from January 1st, 2011 to November 30th, 2022, the International Microtransplant Interest Group provides recommendations and considerations for MST in the treatment of EAML. Four major issues related to MST for treating EAML were addressed: therapeutic principle of MST (1), candidates for MST (2), induction chemotherapy regimens (3), and post-remission therapy based on MST (4). Others included donor screening, infusion of donor cells, laboratory examinations, and complications of treatment

Cellular anatomy of the mouse primary motor cortex.

An essential step toward understanding brain function is to establish a structural framework with cellular resolution on which multi-scale datasets spanning molecules, cells, circuits and systems can be integrated and interpreted1. Here, as part of the collaborative Brain Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN), we derive a comprehensive cell type-based anatomical description of one exemplar brain structure, the mouse primary motor cortex, upper limb area (MOp-ul). Using genetic and viral labelling, barcoded anatomy resolved by sequencing, single-neuron reconstruction, whole-brain imaging and cloud-based neuroinformatics tools, we delineated the MOp-ul in 3D and refined its sublaminar organization. We defined around two dozen projection neuron types in the MOp-ul and derived an input-output wiring diagram, which will facilitate future analyses of motor control circuitry across molecular, cellular and system levels. This work provides a roadmap towards a comprehensive cellular-resolution description of mammalian brain architecture

Development of a device free tracking system for human tracking

Wireless technologies have attracted increasing attentions among these years due to its miniaturization, identity and flexibility, which have greatly promoted the quality and convenience of human life in many aspects. Among the wireless technologies, wireless sensor network, a special kind of point-to-point network, usually does not need high transmission bandwidth, and has low transmission delay and extremely low, which has attracted more and more research and investment attention. With the expansion of the elderly group, the security of the elderly at home is also one of the research hotspots. The home camera monitor used mostly cannot protect the privacy of the elderly well, which is increasingly valued in today's society. Our research aims at developing the wireless network system for human tracking without the need of videos or other devices with human body. In this dissertation, the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) are used to detect human with the wireless sensor network topology. Our human detection method does not require an external sensor and can be detected using the signal strength fluctuation of RSSI. This detection method mainly considers the stability of the RSSI data collected and Kalman filtering is used; then, the deep learning algorithm is used to train the prediction model to predict the specific coordinates of the human body in the monitoring space and verify its accuracy through experiments. Finally, the static human detection model is then applied to real-time detection and tracking, and its practicality is verified through a specific moving path. This dissertation discusses the detection and tracking of human body position based on RSSI figures and has achieved some preliminary results. The study of volatility based on RSSI figures has very good application prospects and is worthy of our further attention and research.Master of Science (Computer Control and Automation

A One Pot Method for Preparing an Antibacterial Superabsorbent Hydrogel with a Semi-IPN Structure Based on Tara Gum and Polyquaternium-7

An antibacterial superabsorbent polymer was prepared by graft polymerization of acrylic acid onto tara gum polysaccharide, by adding N,N-dimethyl-N-2-propenyl-2-propen-1-aminium chloride and a polymer with 2-propenamide (polyquaternium-7, PQ7) as an antibacterial agent. The effects of the amount of PQ7 in the hydrogel on its swelling ratio were investigated and maximum swelling ratios of 712 g/g and 68 g/g, in distilled water and 0.9 wt % NaCl solution were attained with 0.5 g PQ7 per gram of tara gum. The superabsorbent hydrogel was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis. The results showed that poly (acrylic acid) was successfully grafted onto tara gum and a three-dimensional network structure formed with PQ7 chains penetrated in the networks. The antibacterial properties of these superabsorbent hydrogels against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli improved with increasing PQ7 content. This study demonstrates a method of preparing novel functional superabsorbent hydrogels