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Neurotrophic herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) establishes lifelong latent infection in humans. Accumulating studies indicate that HSV-1, a risk factor of neurodegenerative diseases, exacerbates the sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD). The analysis of viral genetic materials via genomic sequencing and quantitative PCR (qPCR) is the current approach used for the detection of HSV-1; however, this approach is limited because of its difficulty in detecting both latent and lytic phases of the HSV-1 life cycle in infected hosts. RNAscope, a novel in situ RNA hybridization assay, enables visualized detection of multiple RNA targets on tissue sections. Here, we developed a fluorescent multiplex RNAscope assay in combination with immunofluorescence to detect neuronal HSV-1 transcripts in various types of mouse brain samples and human brain tissues. Specifically, the RNA probes were designed to separately recognize two transcripts in the same brain section: (1) the HSV-1 latency-associated transcript (LAT) and (2) the lytic-associated transcript, the tegument protein gene of the unique long region 37 (UL37). As a result, both LATand UL37 signals were detectable in neurons in the hippocampus and trigeminal ganglia (TG). The quantifications of HSV-1 transcripts in the TG and CNS neurons are correlated with the viral loads during lytic and latent infection. Collectively, the development of combinational detection of neuronal HSV-1 transcripts in mouse brains can serve as a valuable tool to visualize HSV-1 infection phases in various types of samples from AD patients and facilitate our understanding of the infectious origin of neurodegeneration and dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the perception of hedonic attributes (flavor, texture, appearance, color, and size) to describe food likeness (FL) and acceptability (FA) of meals among 191 elders (mean age=77y): 50 Chinese (CH), 54 Africa-Americans (AA), 50 Whites (WH) and 37 Hispanics (HI), all participants of a home delivered meals program in Massachusetts. We also assessed diet quality with summary scores based on macro- and micronutrient intakes. Significantly less AAs and CHs accepted the flavor (56% in both groups; P<0.001) and the texture (59% & 60%; P<0.001) of the delivered meals, compared to WHs (90% in both attributes). FL and FA were both associated with ethnicity but not with diet quality. Flavor was the only attribute associated with FL (P<0.05). Study subjects based their evaluation of meals in cultural factors and food attributes but not on the quality of their diets. Flavor, in particular, should be treated as an important factor when designing food programs for the elderly, as this attribute is directly associated with improvements in food intakes of frail elders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines several major voting rights cases in the U.S. from the last 30 years covering issues from partisan gerrymandering to vote dilution claims and access issues under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Topics include the constitutional and statutory bases for the right to vote, an analysis of U.S. Supreme Court cases to show how each case operates to curtail the right to a meaningful vote for all citizens, and an explanation of the Court's voting rights jurisprudence.

Major earthquakes cause serious damage to ecosystem structure and function through their huge destructive force and subsequent geohazards. Understanding the characteristics of post-earthquake land use change is of great interest to assess the effects of ecological restoration in earthquake-affected areas. However, little is known about the consequences of land use change on a small scale due to incomplete, non-comprehensive, and sparse research data. Here, we used remote-sensing images to study the land use change characteristics of the Longxi River before and after the Wenchuan earthquake by calculating the land use dynamics degree, transition matrix, and gravity center of the Longxi River Basin from 2005 to 2015. The Wenchuan earthquake disaster did not affect the main dominance of forests. Grassland, the second dominant land type, was replaced by geohazard-induced unutilized land after the earthquake. Compared with pre-earthquake in 2005, the areas of cultivated land, forest, grassland, and water area decreased, while those of construction land and unutilized land increased in 2015. The single land use dynamic degree and spatial dynamic change degree show the highest transition intensity of other land use types to unutilized land between 2005 and 2009. However, the degrees of all land use types decreased between 2009 and 2015. Both banks of the lower reach of the Longxi River had high and developing comprehensive indexes of land use degrees during the study period. The gravity centers of grassland, construction land, water, and cultivated land changed from north to south, while forest and unutilized land had the opposite pattern. Our results provide useful information for ecological restoration, ecological security, and soil-erosion control in earthquake-affected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurotrophic herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) establishes lifelong latent infection in humans. Accumulating studies indicate that HSV-1, a risk factor of neurodegenerative diseases, exacerbates the sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD). The analysis of viral genetic materials via genomic sequencing and quantitative PCR (qPCR) is the current approach used for the detection of HSV-1; however, this approach is limited because of its difficulty in detecting both latent and lytic phases of the HSV-1 life cycle in infected hosts. RNAscope, a novel in situ RNA hybridization assay, enables visualized detection of multiple RNA targets on tissue sections. Here, we developed a fluorescent multiplex RNAscope assay in combination with immunofluorescence to detect neuronal HSV-1 transcripts in various types of mouse brain samples and human brain tissues. Specifically, the RNA probes were designed to separately recognize two transcripts in the same brain section: (1) the HSV-1 latency-associated transcript (LAT) and (2) the lytic-associated transcript, the tegument protein gene of the unique long region 37 (UL37). As a result, both LAT and UL37 signals were detectable in neurons in the hippocampus and trigeminal ganglia (TG). The quantifications of HSV-1 transcripts in the TG and CNS neurons are correlated with the viral loads during lytic and latent infection. Collectively, the development of combinational detection of neuronal HSV-1 transcripts in mouse brains can serve as a valuable tool to visualize HSV-1 infection phases in various types of samples from AD patients and facilitate our understanding of the infectious origin of neurodegeneration and dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method for human action recognition using a deep learning network with features optimized using particle swarm optimization is proposed. The binary histogram, Harris corner points and wavelet coefficients are the features extracted from the spatiotemporal volume of the video sequence. In order to reduce the computational complexity of the system, the feature space is reduced by particle swarm optimization technique with the multi-objective fitness function. Finally, the performance of the system is evaluated using deep learning neural network (DLNN). Two autoencoders are trained independently and the knowledge embedded in the autoencoders are transferred to the proposed DLNN for human action recognition. The proposed framework achieves an average recognition rate of 91% on UT interaction set 1, 88% on UT interaction set 2, 91% on SBU interaction dataset and 94% on Weizmann dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]