Indole contributes to tetracycline resistance via the outer membrane protein OmpN in Vibrio splendidus

As an interspecies and interkingdom signaling molecule, indole has recently received attention for its diverse effects on the physiology of both bacteria and hosts. In this study, indole increased the tetracycline resistance of Vibrio splendidus. The minimal inhibitory concentration of tetracycline was 10 mu g/mL, and the OD600 of V. splendidus decreased by 94.5% in the presence of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline; however, the OD600 of V. splendidus with a mixture of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline and 125 mu M indole was 10- or 4.5-fold higher than that with only 20 mu g/mL tetracycline at different time points. The percentage of cells resistant to 10 mu g/mL tetracycline was 600-fold higher in the culture with an OD600 of approximately 2.0 (higher level of indole) than that in the culture with an OD600 of 0.5, which also meant that the level of indole was correlated to the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus. Furthermore, one differentially expressed protein, which was identified as the outer membrane porin OmpN using SDS-PAGE combined with MALDI-TOF/TOF MS, was upregulated. Consequently, the expression of the ompN gene in the presence of either tetracycline or indole and simultaneously in the presence of indole and tetracycline was upregulated by 1.8-, 2.54-, and 6.01-fold, respectively, compared to the control samples. The combined results demonstrated that indole enhanced the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus, and this resistance was probably due to upregulation of the outer membrane porin OmpN

The Children in “Orange”

Behind an increasing rate of parental incarceration, the public is encountering a significant amount of the children of incarcerated parents. The children who experienced the imprisonment of parents become the hidden victims under the criminal justice system. The separation that occurs when a parent enters prison plays a role in generating adverse developmental outcomes in children. In response to the contemporary correctional philosophy, specific efforts have been provided to the purpose of rehabilitation and social reinsertion. Interactions between incarcerated parents and their children that adopted a wide range of formats have been designed due to the undeniable benefits of a secure parent-child attachment. The children-oriented visitation program and the prison nursery provide children with possibilities to continue the bonding process inside a correctional facility. Regardless of valid criticisms, the existence of both programs proves the benefits for an inmate and a child outweigh the potential negative impacts of the prison environment on the children. However, those impacts should never be ignored. This is not a thesis about examining the correctional system, but about exploring the space designed for the inmates' children. It intends to create a children-friendly environment inside the correctional facilities to accommodate positive parent-child interactions

THE ROLE OF AUTOPHAGY DURING ORTHODONTIC TOOTH MOVEMENT

Orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) depends on efficient remodeling of surrounding alveolar bone. While a well-controlled inflammatory response is essential during such biological processes, the precise mechanism by which how inflammation is regulated hasn’t been fully understood. Autophagy, a conserved catabolic pathway, has been shown to protect cells from excessive long lasting inflammation in nervous systems and other disease conditions. We hypothesize that autophagy plays a role in regulating inflammation during OTM. By using a split mouth design in adult male mice at different time points (days 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 14) after 30 gram of force loading, we found that autophagy activity increased shortly after loading (as early as day 1) and was closely associated with inflammatory cytokine expression as well as osteoclast activation (by TRAP staining). Autophagy activation appeared to be at the protein, not mRNA, level. Daily administration of rapamycin, autophagy activator, in adult male mice led to reduced tooth movement amount as well as inflammatory signal after loading, suggesting a negative effect of autophagy on inflammatory response during OTM. To our knowledge, this is the first time that research showed autophagy plays a role during orthodontic tooth movement, likely via negative regulation of inflammatory response. More molecular and cellular analyses are needed to elucidate the underlying mechanism that governs the regulation of inflammation by autophagy pathway.Master of Scienc

High-Temperature sensor based on peanut flat-end reflection structure

A high-temperature sensor based on a peanut flat-end reflection structure is demonstrated. The sensor can be simply fabricated by splicing the spherical end-faces of two segments of single-mode fibers and then cleaving one other end as a flat reflect surface. The proposed structure works as a reflected interferometer. When the ambient temperature changes, the resonant dip wavelength of the interferometer will shift due to the linear expansion or contraction and the thermo-optic effect. As a result, the temperature measurement can be achieved by monitoring the resonant dip wavelength of the interferometer. Experimental results show that the proposed sensor probe based on the peanut flat-end reflection structure works well and it can measure the temperature range from 100 °C to 900 °C with the sensitivity of 0.098 nm/ °C with R²  =  0.988. When temperature ranges from 400 °C to 900 °C, the sensitivity of 0.11 nm/ °C can be achieved with R² = 0.9995. Due to its compact and simple configuration, the proposed sensor is a good high temperature sensor probe.This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province China under Grant No.LY17F050010

NeRF: Neural Radiance Field in 3D Vision, A Comprehensive Review

Neural Radiance Field (NeRF), a new novel view synthesis with implicit scene representation has taken the field of Computer Vision by storm. As a novel view synthesis and 3D reconstruction method, NeRF models find applications in robotics, urban mapping, autonomous navigation, virtual reality/augmented reality, and more. Since the original paper by Mildenhall et al., more than 250 preprints were published, with more than 100 eventually being accepted in tier one Computer Vision Conferences. Given NeRF popularity and the current interest in this research area, we believe it necessary to compile a comprehensive survey of NeRF papers from the past two years, which we organized into both architecture, and application based taxonomies. We also provide an introduction to the theory of NeRF based novel view synthesis, and a benchmark comparison of the performance and speed of key NeRF models. By creating this survey, we hope to introduce new researchers to NeRF, provide a helpful reference for influential works in this field, as well as motivate future research directions with our discussion section