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SARS-CoV-2 infection causes diverse outcomes ranging from asymptomatic infection to respiratory distress and death. A major unresolved question is whether prior immunity to endemic, human common cold coronaviruses (hCCCoVs) impacts susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection or immunity following infection and vaccination. Therefore, we analyzed samples from the same individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination. We found hCCCoV antibody levels increase after SARS-CoV-2 exposure, demonstrating cross-reactivity. However, a case-control study indicates that baseline hCCCoV antibody levels are not associated with protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Rather, higher magnitudes of pre-existing betacoronavirus antibodies correlate with more SARS-CoV-2 antibodies following infection, an indicator of greater disease severity. Additionally, immunization with hCCCoV spike proteins before SARS-CoV-2 immunization impedes the generation of SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing antibodies in mice. Together, these data suggest that pre-existing hCCCoV antibodies hinder SARS-CoV-2 antibody-based immunity following infection and provide insight on how pre-existing coronavirus immunity impacts SARS-CoV-2 infection, which is critical considering emerging variants.

SARS-CoV-2 infection causes diverse outcomes ranging from asymptomatic infection to respiratory distress and death. A major unresolved question is whether prior immunity to endemic, human common cold coronaviruses (hCCCoVs) impacts susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection or immunity following infection and vaccination. Therefore, we analyzed samples from the same individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination. We found hCCCoV antibody levels increase after SARS-CoV-2 exposure, demonstrating cross-reactivity. However, a case-control study indicates that baseline hCCCoV antibody levels are not associated with protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Rather, higher magnitudes of pre-existing betacoronavirus antibodies correlate with more SARS-CoV-2 antibodies following infection, an indicator of greater disease severity. Additionally, immunization with hCCCoV spike proteins before SARS-CoV-2 immunization impedes the generation of SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing antibodies in mice. Together, these data suggest that pre-existing hCCCoV antibodies hinder SARS-CoV-2 antibody-based immunity following infection and provide insight on how pre-existing coronavirus immunity impacts SARS-CoV-2 infection, which is critical considering emerging variants.

In recent years, there has been growing concern over the vulnerability of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to image perturbations. However, achieving general robustness against different types of perturbations remains challenging, in which enhancing robustness to some perturbations (e.g., adversarial perturbations) may degrade others (e.g., common corruptions). In this paper, we demonstrate that adversarial training with an emphasis on phase components significantly improves model performance on clean, adversarial, and common corruption accuracies. We propose a frequency-based data augmentation method, Adversarial Amplitude Swap, that swaps the amplitude spectrum between clean and adversarial images to generate two novel training images: adversarial amplitude and adversarial phase images. These images act as substitutes for adversarial images and can be implemented in various adversarial training setups. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our method enables the CNNs to gain general robustness against different types of perturbations and results in a uniform performance against all types of common corruptions., Comment: 15 pages and 5 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2203.07138

Species of Artemia are regionally endemic branchiopod crustaceans composed of sexual species and parthenogenetic lineages, and represent an excellent model for studying adaptation and speciation to extreme and heterogeneous hypersaline environments. We tested hypotheses of whether populations from the Tibetan Plateau belong to A. tibetianaAbatzopoulos, Zhang & Sorgeloos,1998 and whether a population from Kazakhstan is a new species, using other Asian species of Artemia as outgroups. We conducted a multitrait phylogenetic study based on the complete mitogenome, mitochondrial (COI, 12S, 16S) and nuclear (microsatellites, ITS1) markers, and a suit of uni- and multivariate morphological traits. Our results led to the discovery of two new species, one from the Tibetan Plateau (Haiyan Lake) in China (Artemia sorgeloosin. sp.) and a second from Kazakhstan (Artemia amatin. sp.). Our analysis demonstrate that A. tibetiana and A. amatin. sp. are monophyletic, whereas A. sorgeloosin. sp., and A. tibetiana are polyphyletic. Evolutionary relationships based on mitochondrial and nSSR markers suggest that A. tibetiana may have arisen from a past hybridization event of a maternal ancestor of A. tibetiana with A. sorgeloosin. sp. or its ancestor. We present the complete mitogenome of A. tibetiana, A. amatin. sp., and A. sorgeloosin. sp. We also provide a novel taxonomic identification key based on morphology, emphasizing the phenotype as a necessary component of the species concept.

Quantum measurements cannot be thought of as revealing preexisting results, even when they do not disturb any other measurement in the same trial. This feature is called contextuality and is crucial for the quantum advantage in computing. Here, we report the observation of quantum contextuality simultaneously free of the detection, sharpness, and compatibility loopholes. The detection and sharpness loopholes are closed by adopting a hybrid two-ion system and highly efficient fluorescence measurements offering a detection efficiency of 100% and a measurement repeatability of >98%. The compatibility loophole is closed by targeting correlations between observables for two different ions in a Paul trap, a 171Yb+ ion and a 138Ba+ ion, chosen so measurements on each ion use different operation laser wavelengths, fluorescence wavelengths, and detectors. The experimental results show a violation of the bound for the most adversarial noncontextual models and open a way to certify quantum systems.

Although mRNA vaccine efficacy against severe coronavirus disease 2019 remains high, variant emergence has prompted booster immunizations. However, the effects of repeated exposures to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antigens on memory T cells are poorly understood. Here, we utilize major histocompatibility complex multimers with single-cell RNA sequencing to profile SARS-CoV-2-responsive T cells ex vivo from humans with one, two or three antigen exposures, including vaccination, primary infection and breakthrough infection. Exposure order determined the distribution between spike-specific and non-spike-specific responses, with vaccination after infection leading to expansion of spike-specific T cells and differentiation to CCR7-CD45RA+ effectors. In contrast, individuals after breakthrough infection mount vigorous non-spike-specific responses. Analysis of over 4,000 epitope-specific T cell antigen receptor (TCR) sequences demonstrates that all exposures elicit diverse repertoires characterized by shared TCR motifs, confirmed by monoclonal TCR characterization, with no evidence for repertoire narrowing from repeated exposure. Our findings suggest that breakthrough infections diversify the T cell memory repertoire and current vaccination protocols continue to expand and differentiate spike-specific memory.

Quantum measurements cannot be thought of as revealing preexisting results, even when they do not disturb any other measurement in the same trial. This feature is called contextuality and is crucial for the quantum advantage in computing. Here, we report the observation of quantum contextuality simultaneously free of the detection, sharpness, and compatibility loopholes. The detection and sharpness loopholes are closed by adopting a hybrid two-ion system and highly efficient fluorescence measurements offering a detection efficiency of 100% and a measurement repeatability of >98%. The compatibility loophole is closed by targeting correlations between observables for two different ions in a Paul trap, a 171Yb+ ion and a 138Ba+ ion, chosen so measurements on each ion use different operation laser wavelengths, fluorescence wavelengths, and detectors. The experimental results show a violation of the bound for the most adversarial noncontextual models and open a way to certify quantum systems.

Quantum measurements cannot be thought of as revealing preexisting results, even when they do not disturb any other measurement in the same trial. This feature is called contextuality and is crucial for the quantum advantage in computing. Here, we report the observation of quantum contextuality simultaneously free of the detection, sharpness, and compatibility loopholes. The detection and sharpness loopholes are closed by adopting a hybrid two-ion system and highly efficient fluorescence measurements offering a detection efficiency of 100% and a measurement repeatability of >98%. The compatibility loophole is closed by targeting correlations between observables for two different ions in a Paul trap, a 171Yb+ ion and a 138Ba+ ion, chosen so measurements on each ion use different operation laser wavelengths, fluorescence wavelengths, and detectors. The experimental results show a violation of the bound for the most adversarial noncontextual models and open a way to certify quantum systems.

Zhihui Liu,1,* Nazeer Hussain Khan,2,3,* Lintao Wang,4 Chun-Yang Zhang,5,6 Xin-Ying Ji2,7,8 1Department of General Practice, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Henan International Joint Laboratory for Nuclear Protein Regulation, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, People’s Republic of China; 3Section of Basic Medical Subjects, Shu-Qing Medical College of Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou, People’s Republic of China; 4The First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Thoracic Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of General Thoracic Surgery, Hami Central Hospital, Hami, People’s Republic of China; 7Kaifeng Key Laboratory for Infectious Diseases and Biosafety, Kaifeng, People’s Republic of China; 8Faculty of Basic Medical Subjects, Shu-Qing Medical College of Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Chun-Yang Zhang; Xin-Ying Ji, Email zcy198200@163.com; 10190096@vip.henu.edu.cnBackground and Objective: Anxiety influences job burnout and health. This study aimed to establish a nomogram to predict the anxiety status of medical staff during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.Methods: A total of 600 medical members were randomized 7:3 and divided into training and validation sets. The data was collected using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis and Akaike information criterion (AIC) were applied to investigate the risk factors for anxiety. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated to establish a nomogram.Results: Participation time (OR=44.28, 95% CI=13.13~149.32), rest time (OR=38.50, 95% CI=10.43~142.19), epidemic prevention area (OR=10.16, 95% CI=3.51~29.40), epidemic prevention equipment (O

The vulnerability of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to image perturbations such as common corruptions and adversarial perturbations has recently been investigated from the perspective of frequency. In this study, we investigate the effect of the amplitude and phase spectra of adversarial images on the robustness of CNN classifiers. Extensive experiments revealed that the images generated by combining the amplitude spectrum of adversarial images and the phase spectrum of clean images accommodates moderate and general perturbations, and training with these images equips a CNN classifier with more general robustness, performing well under both common corruptions and adversarial perturbations. We also found that two types of overfitting (catastrophic overfitting and robust overfitting) can be circumvented by the aforementioned spectrum recombination. We believe that these results contribute to the understanding and the training of truly robust classifiers., Comment: 13+6 pages (main+supplement), 3 figures

The efficacy of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines administered after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody is unknown, and "antibody interference" might hinder immune responses leading to vaccine failure. In an institutional review board-approved prospective study, we found that an individual who received mRNA COVID-19 vaccination <40 days after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody therapy for symptomatic COVID-19 had similar postvaccine antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) for 4 important SARS-CoV-2 variants (B.1, B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1) as other participants who were also vaccinated following COVID-19. Vaccination against COVID-19 shortly after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody can boost and expand antibody protection, questioning the need to delay vaccination in this setting.Trial registration The St. Jude Tracking of Viral and Host Factors Associated with COVID-19 study; NCT04362995; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04362995.

The efficacy of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines administered after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody is unknown, and "antibody interference" might hinder immune responses leading to vaccine failure. In an institutional review board-approved prospective study, we found that an individual who received mRNA COVID-19 vaccination <40 days after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody therapy for symptomatic COVID-19 had similar postvaccine antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) for 4 important SARS-CoV-2 variants (B.1, B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1) as other participants who were also vaccinated following COVID-19. Vaccination against COVID-19 shortly after COVID-19-specific monoclonal antibody can boost and expand antibody protection, questioning the need to delay vaccination in this setting.Trial registrationThe St. Jude Tracking of Viral and Host Factors Associated with COVID-19 study; NCT04362995; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04362995.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a lethal malignancy lacking effective treatment. The Cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6 (CDK4/6) and PI3K/AKT signal pathways play pivotal roles in carcinogenesis and are promising therapeutic targets for HCC. Here we identified a new CDK4/6 and PI3K/AKT multi-kinase inhibitor for the treatment of HCC. Methods: Using a repurposing and ensemble docking methodology, we screened a library of worldwide approved drugs to identify candidate CDK4/6 inhibitors. By MTT, apoptosis, and flow cytometry analysis, we investigated the effects of candidate drug in reducing cell-viability,inducing apoptosis, and causing cell-cycle arrest. The drug combination and thermal proteomic profiling (TPP) method were used to investigate whether the candidate drug produced antagonistic effect. The in vivo anti-cancer effect was performed in BALB/C nude mice subcutaneously xenografted with Huh7 cells. Results: We demonstrated for the first time that the anti-plasmodium drug aminoquinol is a new CDK4/6 and PI3K/AKT inhibitor. Aminoquinol significantly decreased cell viability, induced apoptosis, increased the percentage of cells in G1 phase. Drug combination screening indicated that aminoquinol could produce antagonistic effect with the PI3K inhibitor LY294002. TPP analysis confirmed that aminoquinol significantly stabilized CDK4, CDK6, PI3K and AKT proteins. Finally, in vivo study in Huh7 cells xenografted nude mice demonstrated that aminoquinol exhibited strong anti-tumor activity, comparable to that of the leading cancer drug 5-fluorouracil with the combination treatment showed the highest therapeutic effect. Conclusion: The present study indicates for the first time the discovery of a new CDK4/6 and PI3K/AKT multi-kinase inhibitor aminoquinol. It could be used alone or as a combination therapeutic strategy for the treatment of HCC.

Chen-Mao Liao,1,* Chih-Ming Lin,2,* Chin-Chia Kuo,1 Ming-Shu Chen,3 Chun-Yang Huang,4 Ching-Yuan Lin4 1Department of Applied Statistics and Information Science, Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan City 33352, Taiwan; R.O.C.; 2Department of Healthcare Information and Management, Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan City 33352, Taiwan; R.O.C.; 3Department of Healthcare Administration, College of Management and Healthcare, Oriental Institute of Technology, New Taipei City 22061, Taiwan; R.O.C.; 4Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ten Chan General Hospital, Chung-Li, Taoyuan City 32043, Taiwan; R.O.C.*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ming-Shu ChenDepartment of Healthcare Administration, College of Management and Healthcare, Oriental Institute of Technology, No58, Sec. 2, Sichuan Road, Pan-Chiao Dist., New Taipei City 22061, Taiwan; R.O.C.Tel +886-2-77388000 ext. 6223Email tree1013@gmail.comBackground: To continuously improve medical quality and provide clinicians with more accurate blood test reports, this study collected blood quality control data in 2017 from a medical examination laboratory in a teaching level hospital located in Taoyuan City, Taiwan.Material and Methods: The quality control data were arranged and analyzed from daily complete blood count (CBC), including white blood cells (WBC), red blood cells (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb), and platelets (PLT) recorded by a laboratory blood analyzer. Using the empirical Bayesian method, we estimated the variation of concentrations of the last and current batches to establish a novel control chart with adjusted upper and lower limits for the current batch, and then compared results with the traditional Shewhart method. The average run length (ARL) and sensitivity of the empirical Bayesian method were explored.Results: The study found that ARL showed a qualified capability for the four blood routine tests when using the empirical Bayesian method. Compared to the Levey–Jennings control chart, the n

Shuang-long Li, Yong-liang Zhu, Chun-yang Zhu, Shao-bin Li, Zi-heng Li, Xiang-jun Qiu Medical College of Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiang-jun QiuMedical College of Henan University of Science and Technology 471023, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 13698882699 Fax + 86 379-64830346 Email lyxiangjun@126.comAbstract: A method for the simultaneous determination of parecoxib and its metabolite valdecoxib in beagle plasma by UPLC-MS/MS was developed and validated. After the plasma was extracted by acetonitrile precipitation, the analytes were separated on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (2.1 mm × 50 mm, 1.7 μm) using acetonitrile-formic acid as the mobile phase in gradient mode. The analytes were monitored by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) in electrospray negative ion mode. The mass transfer pairs were m/z 368.97→ 119.01 for parecoxib, m/z 312.89→ 118.02 for valdecoxib, and m/z 379.98→ 316.02 for celecoxib (internal standard, IS). The correlation coefficients of parecoxib and valdecoxib ranged from 5 to  4000 ng/mL were greater than 0.9998. The recovery of parecoxib and valdecoxib was greater than 82.54%. The inter- and intra-day precision RSD values were 1.36∼ 3.65% and 2.28∼ 5.91%, respectively. The accuracy of RE values were − 1.38%∼ 1.96%. Finally, the matrix effect (ME) and stability were also within acceptable criteria. This method had been successfully applied to the pharmacokinetics of parecoxib and valdecoxib in beagle plasma after injection of parecoxib (1.33 mg/kg, intramuscular injection).Keywords: parecoxib, valdecoxib, UPLC-MS/MS, pharmacokinetics

Chun-yang Feng,1 Ruo-hao Liang,2 Xi-ming Jiang2 1Treasury Department, Urumqi Central Sub-Branch of the People’s Bank of China, Urumqi, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China; 2Accounting College, Xinjiang University of Finance & Economics, Urumqi, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xi-ming Jiang Email xjjxm2020@163.comObjective: To analyze the status of government health expenditure in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since the first 10 years from the new medical reform, and find the existing problems in order to provide evidence for the government to formulate medical and health policies.Methods: Based on the health expenditure monitoring data of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government from Urumqi Central Sub-branch of the People’s Bank of China, combined with the relevant data in Xinjiang statistical yearbook, Excel2013 and SPSS19.0 were used to conduct a comparative analysis of government expenditure data from 2009 to 2018.Results: The average annual growth rate of the government’s health expenditure in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was 12.25%, which was similar to the national level. The proportion of government health expenditure in gross domestic product increased from 0.97% to 1.07%, while the proportion in the total fiscal expenditure decreased from 3.06% to 2.63%, which led to far behind the national and even western area level. The Gini Coefficient of per capita government health expenditure in every city (state) of the autonomous region fell from 0.46 to 0.32 between 2014 and 2018. In the past decade, the ratio between public health expenditure and medical institution expenditure has decreased from 1.01 to 0.42, led to insufficient proportion of public health expenditure. The health expenditure level of the four prefectures especially Kashgar and Hotan in Southern Xinjiang was still far lower than the whole autonomous region and the national average level.Conclusion: The gover

Three Australian native Eucalyptus species, i.e., Eucalyptus woodwardii, Eucalyptus pachyphylla and Eucalyptus dolorosa, were investigated, for the first time, with respect to the hydrophobicity of their leaves. It is well established that these leaves exhibit exceptionally high water repellency, in addition to an extraordinary ability to retain water, albeit their specific wetting mechanisms are still poorly understood. To identify the critical factors underlying this phenomenon, the surface topography of these leaves was subjected to micro-examination (SEM). Micro- and nanometer scale surface roughness was revealed, resembling that of the quintessential “lotus effect”. Surface free energy analysis was performed on two models based on the surface topographies of the study Eucalyptus species and lotus, in order to study wetting transitions on these specific microscopic surface features. The influence of surface geometrical parameters, such as edge-to-edge distance, base radius and cylindrical height, on surface free energy with different liquid penetration depths was studied with these two models. Larger energy barriers and smaller liquid-solid contact areas were more influential in the calculations for the lotus than for Eucalyptus. The information obtained from these two models may be useful for guiding the design of novel artificial surfaces in the collection and transport of micro-volume liquids. © 2019 The Authors

Three Australian native Eucalyptus species, i.e., Eucalyptus woodwardii, Eucalyptus pachyphylla and Eucalyptus dolorosa, were investigated, for the first time, with respect to the hydrophobicity of their leaves. It is well established that these leaves exhibit exceptionally high water repellency, in addition to an extraordinary ability to retain water, albeit their specific wetting mechanisms are still poorly understood. To identify the critical factors underlying this phenomenon, the surface topography of these leaves was subjected to micro-examination (SEM). Micro- and nanometer scale surface roughness was revealed, resembling that of the quintessential “lotus effect”. Surface free energy analysis was performed on two models based on the surface topographies of the study Eucalyptus species and lotus, in order to study wetting transitions on these specific microscopic surface features. The influence of surface geometrical parameters, such as edge-to-edge distance, base radius and cylindrical height, on surface free energy with different liquid penetration depths was studied with these two models. Larger energy barriers and smaller liquid-solid contact areas were more influential in the calculations for the lotus than for Eucalyptus. The information obtained from these two models may be useful for guiding the design of novel artificial surfaces in the collection and transport of micro-volume liquids. © 2019 The Authors

In the present study, metal nitride based sputtered thin film coatings such as Mo/Si, CrN/Si, and Mo:CrN/Si were investigated for their solar selective surface and mechanical applications. Despite a large number of literature is available in the area of solar selective applications of metal nitride based thin film coatings, these materials are still to be commercialized for their practical device applications. In view of this, we chose metal nitride based thin film coatings e.g., Mo, CrN and Mo:CrN to realize their structural, morphological, elemental compositions, optical, dielectric and mechanical properties in as-deposited, and annealed conditions. Detail analyses of these features were carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis spectroscopy and FTIR, nanoindentation and finite element modeling (FEM). In addition to these, the first principle based density functional theory (DFT) integrated with the B3LYP hybrid functional plus LANL2DZ basis sets based infrared (IR), Raman and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) analysis were also carried out to probe the electronic structural and optical properties of pristine and Mo-doped CrN clusters in the non-crystalline phase. Optical analysis showed that in the visible range of the solar spectrum, the CrN coatings exhibit the highest solar absorptance of 66% while the lowest thermal emittance value of 5.67 was recorded for the CrN coating doped with Mo. As a result, the highest solar selectivity of 9.6, and the energy band-gap of 2.88 eV were achieved with the Mo-doped CrN coatings. On the other hand, optical studies of the annealed coatings showed that with the rise in annealing temperature up to 700 °C, the solar absorptance of CrN coatings increased from 61% to 89% and slightly decreased at 800 °C, while the optical band-gap energy dropped from 2.62 to 1.38 eV but slightly increased to

In the present study, metal nitride based sputtered thin film coatings such as Mo/Si, CrN/Si, and Mo:CrN/Si were investigated for their solar selective surface and mechanical applications. Despite a large number of literature is available in the area of solar selective applications of metal nitride based thin film coatings, these materials are still to be commercialized for their practical device applications. In view of this, we chose metal nitride based thin film coatings e.g., Mo, CrN and Mo:CrN to realize their structural, morphological, elemental compositions, optical, dielectric and mechanical properties in as-deposited, and annealed conditions. Detail analyses of these features were carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis spectroscopy and FTIR, nanoindentation and finite element modeling (FEM). In addition to these, the first principle based density functional theory (DFT) integrated with the B3LYP hybrid functional plus LANL2DZ basis sets based infrared (IR), Raman and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) analysis were also carried out to probe the electronic structural and optical properties of pristine and Mo-doped CrN clusters in the non-crystalline phase. Optical analysis showed that in the visible range of the solar spectrum, the CrN coatings exhibit the highest solar absorptance of 66% while the lowest thermal emittance value of 5.67 was recorded for the CrN coating doped with Mo. As a result, the highest solar selectivity of 9.6, and the energy band-gap of 2.88 eV were achieved with the Mo-doped CrN coatings. On the other hand, optical studies of the annealed coatings showed that with the rise in annealing temperature up to 700 °C, the solar absorptance of CrN coatings increased from 61% to 89% and slightly decreased at 800 °C, while the optical band-gap energy dropped from 2.62 to 1.38 eV but slightly increased to

In recent years, crowd analysis is important for applications such as smart cities, intelligent transportation system, customer behavior prediction, and visual surveillance. Understanding the characteristics of the individual motion in a crowd can be beneficial for social event detection and abnormal detection, but it has rarely been studied. In this paper, we focus on the extraversion measure of individual motions in crowds based on trajectory data. Extraversion is one of typical personalities that is often observed in human crowd behaviors and it can reflect not only the characteristics of the individual motion, but also the that of the holistic crowd motions. To our best knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyze individual extraversion of crowd motions based on trajectories. To accomplish this, we first present a effective composite motion descriptor, which integrates the basic individual motion information and social metrics, to describe the extraversion of each individual in a crowd. The social metrics consider both the neighboring distribution and their interaction pattern. Since our major goal is to learn a universal scoring function that can measure the degrees of extraversion across varied crowd scenes, we incorporate and adapt the active learning technique to the relative attribute approach. Specifically, we assume the social groups in any crowds contain individuals with the similar degree of extraversion. Based on such assumption, we significantly reduce the computation cost by clustering and ranking the trajectories actively. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of our proposed method by measuring the degree of extraversion for real individual trajectories in crowds and analyzing crowd scenes from a real-world dataset., Comment: require modification

Chun-Yang Wang,1,2 Shu Liu,1,2 Xiao-Nv Xie,1,2 Zhi-Ying Luo,1,2 Li Yang,1,2 Zhi-Rong Tan1,2 1Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Central South University; Hunan Key Laboratory of Pharmacogenetics, Changsha 410078, People’s Republic of China Introduction: The small peptide transporter 1 (PepT-1) and adipose phospholipase A2 (AdPLA) play a key role in the development of obesity. However, there are no data assessing the impact of PepT-1 (SLC15A1) and AdPLA (PLA2G16) variants on obesity susceptibility. Therefore, we assessed the contribution of 9 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between these two genes on obesity susceptibility in Chinese subjects.Materials and methods: A total of 611 participants were enrolled in the study, and 9 SNPs in the SLC15A1 and PLA2G16 genes were selected. Blood samples were collected for genotyping. Overweight and obesity were established by body mass index. Regression analyses were performed to test for any association of genetic polymorphisms with weight abnormality.Results: The genotype frequencies (P=0.04 for rs9557029, P=0.027 for rs1289389) were significantly different between obese or overweight subjects and healthy controls. However, no significant difference in allele was found between these three groups (P>0.05). Further logistic regression analyses adjusted for age and sex also failed to reveal significant associations between overweight, obesity, and the selected SNPs (P>0.05).Conclusion: Data indicate that the selected 9 SNPs in SLC15A1 and PLA2G16 genes were not related to obesity susceptibility in the Han Chinese population. Keywords: obesity, BMI, Chinese subjects, genotyping, SNPs

Chun-Yang Wang,1,2 Shu Liu,1,2 Xiao-Nv Xie,1,2 Zhi-Rong Tan1,2 1Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Xiangya Hospital, Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, 2Hunan Key Laboratory of Pharmacogenetics, Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, People’s Republic of China Abstract: The intestinal peptide transporter 1 (PepT1) was first identified in 1994. It plays a crucial role in the absorption of small peptides including not only >400 different dipeptides and 8,000 tripeptides digested from dietary proteins but also a repertoire of structurally related compounds and drugs. Owing to its critical role in the bioavailability of peptide-like drugs, such as the anti-cancer agents and anti-virus drug, PepT1 is increasingly becoming a striking prodrug-designing target. Therefore, the understanding of PepT1 gene regulation is of great importance both for dietary adaptation and for clinical drug treatment. After decades of research, it has been recognized that PepT1 could be regulated at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels by numerous factors. Therefore, the present review intends to summarize the progress made in the regulation of PepT1 and provide insights into the PepT1’s potential in clinical aspects of nutritional and drug therapies. Keywords: PepT1, dietary, regulation, transport activity, absorption, bioavailability

Rudarene u blizini konstrukcije s greškom može lako dovesti do aktiviranja greške i izazvati ozbiljne geološke poremećaje, predstavljajući ozbiljnu prijetnju sigurnosti proizvodnje uglja. Da bi pokazali karakteristike aktivnosti koje se javljaju u okolnoj stijeni zbog rudarenja u blizini područja s greškom, uzimajući Qixing ugljenokop u Kini kao tehnički ambijent, provela se kontrastivna analiza mikroseizmičkih kretanja u nadgledanom području s greškom na osnovu dobivenih mikroseizmičkih podataka. Promatrano sa stanovišta vrijednosti seizmičkog parametra b i rješenja žarišnog mehanizma, analizirale su se karakteristike širenja mikroseizmičkog događanja i načina loma u ta dva područja. Povećanjem područja rudarenja, provjeravale su se karakteristike razvijanja mikroseizmičkih događanja u okolnoj stijeni pod utjecajem obližnjih konstrukcija s greškom primjenom FLAC3D. Ustanovili smo da je b vrijednost u praćenom području s greškom mnogo niža od one u području nesigurnog rudarenja, što znači da postoji veća opasnost od pojave mikroseizmičkih poremećaja velikog opsega u prvom nego u drugom slučaju. Uz to, razlika u osnovnom naprezanju i elastičnoj energiji u području iskapanja pokazala je karakteristike diskontinuiranog rasprostiranja. Rezultati su pokazali da su postojale neke granične vrijednosti koje su uzrokovale rapidnu promjenu broja mikroseizmičkih pomaka s promjenom faktora kao što su dubina iskapanja, čvrstoća stijene i područje početnog naprezanja. Zaključci su od velike teorijske i praktične vrijednosti za slično rudarstvo., Mining near the fault structure can easily lead to the fault activity and induce serious geological disasters, posing a serious threat to coal mine safety production. To reveal the surrounding rock activity characteristics induced by near-fault mining, taking Qixing Coal Mine in China as the engineering background, the contrastive analysis of the microseismic events in the fault-control area and the mining disturbance area was conducted based on the microseismic monitoring data. From the point of views of seismic parameter b value and focal-mechanism solution, the microseismic event distribution characteristics and the fracture modes in those two areas were analyzed. With the mining area increasing, the evolution characteristics of the microseismic events in the surrounding rock affected by the near-fault structures were verified by using FLAC3D. We found that b value in the fault-control area was much lower than that in the mining disturbance area, indicating that the possibility of large-magnitude microseismic events was greater in the former than that in the latter. Moreover, the principal stress difference and the elastic energy in the mining area displayed the discontinuity distribution charateristics. The results showed that there were some threshold values making the microseismic event numbers change rapidly with these factors variation such as mining depth, rock strength and initial stress field. The conclusions are of important theoretical and practical value for the similar mining engineering.

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to detect, locate and measure the speed of reflecting objects such as aircraft, ships, spacecraft, vehicles, people, weather formations, and terrain. It transmits the electromagnetic waves into space and receives the echo signal reflected from objects. By applying signal processing algorithms on the reflected waveform, the reflecting objects can be detected. Furthermore, the location and the speed of the objects can also be estimated. Radar was originally an acronym for "RAdio Detection And Ranging". Today radar has become a standard English noun. Early radar development was mostly driven by military and military is still the dominant user and developer of radar technology. Military applications include surveillance, navigation, and weapon guidance. However, radar now has a broader range of applications including meteorological detection of precipitation, measuring ocean surface waves, air traffic control, police detection of speeding traffic, sports radar speed guns, and preventing car or ship collisions. Recently, the concept of MIMO radar has been proposed. The MIMO radar is a multiple antenna radar system which is capable of transmitting arbitrary waveform from each antenna element. In the traditional phased array radar, the transmitting antennas are limited to transmit scaled versions of the same waveform. However the MIMO radar allows the multiple antennas to transmit arbitrary waveforms. Like MIMO communications, MIMO radar offers a new paradigm for signal processing research. MIMO radar possesses significant potentials for fading mitigation, resolution enhancement, and interference and jamming suppression. Fully exploiting these potentials can result in significantly improved target detection, parameter estimation, target tracking and recognition performance. The MIMO radar technology has rapidly drawn considerable attention from many researchers. Several advantages of MIMO radar have been discovere

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to detect, locate and measure the speed of reflecting objects such as aircraft, ships, spacecraft, vehicles, people, weather formations, and terrain. It transmits the electromagnetic waves into space and receives the echo signal reflected from objects. By applying signal processing algorithms on the reflected waveform, the reflecting objects can be detected. Furthermore, the location and the speed of the objects can also be estimated. Radar was originally an acronym for "RAdio Detection And Ranging". Today radar has become a standard English noun. Early radar development was mostly driven by military and military is still the dominant user and developer of radar technology. Military applications include surveillance, navigation, and weapon guidance. However, radar now has a broader range of applications including meteorological detection of precipitation, measuring ocean surface waves, air traffic control, police detection of speeding traffic, sports radar speed guns, and preventing car or ship collisions. Recently, the concept of MIMO radar has been proposed. The MIMO radar is a multiple antenna radar system which is capable of transmitting arbitrary waveform from each antenna element. In the traditional phased array radar, the transmitting antennas are limited to transmit scaled versions of the same waveform. However the MIMO radar allows the multiple antennas to transmit arbitrary waveforms. Like MIMO communications, MIMO radar offers a new paradigm for signal processing research. MIMO radar possesses significant potentials for fading mitigation, resolution enhancement, and interference and jamming suppression. Fully exploiting these potentials can result in significantly improved target detection, parameter estimation, target tracking and recognition performance. The MIMO radar technology has rapidly drawn considerable attention from many researchers. Several advantages of MIMO radar have been discovere

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to detect, locate and measure the speed of reflecting objects such as aircraft, ships, spacecraft, vehicles, people, weather formations, and terrain. It transmits the electromagnetic waves into space and receives the echo signal reflected from objects. By applying signal processing algorithms on the reflected waveform, the reflecting objects can be detected. Furthermore, the location and the speed of the objects can also be estimated. Radar was originally an acronym for "RAdio Detection And Ranging". Today radar has become a standard English noun. Early radar development was mostly driven by military and military is still the dominant user and developer of radar technology. Military applications include surveillance, navigation, and weapon guidance. However, radar now has a broader range of applications including meteorological detection of precipitation, measuring ocean surface waves, air traffic control, police detection of speeding traffic, sports radar speed guns, and preventing car or ship collisions. Recently, the concept of MIMO radar has been proposed. The MIMO radar is a multiple antenna radar system which is capable of transmitting arbitrary waveform from each antenna element. In the traditional phased array radar, the transmitting antennas are limited to transmit scaled versions of the same waveform. However the MIMO radar allows the multiple antennas to transmit arbitrary waveforms. Like MIMO communications, MIMO radar offers a new paradigm for signal processing research. MIMO radar possesses significant potentials for fading mitigation, resolution enhancement, and interference and jamming suppression. Fully exploiting these potentials can result in significantly improved target detection, parameter estimation, target tracking and recognition performance. The MIMO radar technology has rapidly drawn considerable attention from many researchers. Several advantages of MIMO radar have been discovere

Objective: A microRNA (miRNA) that functionally downregulates the expression of tumor suppressors can be defined as an oncomir. Here, we interrogate the biological significance of miR-592 in colorectal cancer (CRC). Research design and methods: The expression of miR-592 in CRC tissues and cell lines was ascertained by qRT-PCR assay, and the expression of its target gene was determined by immunohistochemistry staining. The oncogenic role of miR-592 was assessed in terms of cell proliferation, migration, and clonogenicity in vitro, whereas the tumorigenicity was assessed by inhibiting endogenous miR-592 in CRC cells in vivo. Results: A striking upregulation of miR-592 was observed in CRC tissues and cell lines compared to the matched adjacent non-tumor tissues and normal colon cells. Importantly, Forkhead Box O3A (FoxO3A) was identified as a novel target of miR-592. miR-592 inhibitor exhibited a significant reduction of migration, proliferation, and clonogenicity in CRC cells. These cells also displayed a decreased tumorigenicity in SCID mice relative to the control cells. Conclusion: These data suggest that miR-592 may promote the progression and metastasis, in part, by targeting FoxO3A in CRC. miR-592 may be a novel target for CRC treatment and antagomir-592 may inhibit the proliferation and metastasis of CRC cells.

The present study focused on the development of transition metal oxide and metal nitride based thin film coatings to be utilized as a cost-effective solar selective surface that constitute a new approach in maximizing the power conversion efficiency. Despite many developments on transition metal oxide and metal nitride based selective solar absorbers, these materials are yet to be commercialized for solar thermal conversion applications. Numerous studies on CuCoO and graphene oxide based thin films are dedicated for their optical applications and light harvesting purposes. However to the best of our knowledge, utilization of mixed metal oxide/graphene oxide thin films as solar selective surface is yet to be explored. Both CuCoO and graphene oxide (GO) have generated significant research interest and have widespread applications in clean energy devices due to the good combinations of many important properties. Therefore, in this work we focus on the introduction of GO to the 3d transition metal-based CuCoO coatings and develop the new types optical thin films via dip-coating sol-gel technology to be used as solar selective surfaces. It is believed that use of graphene oxide in wet chemistry based sol-gel derived thin films will explore the new platform of producing highly efficient selective solar surfaces. Generally, 3d transition metal nitride based thin film coatings are studied for structural, mechanical, and electrical applications. However, a very limited number of investigations are directed in search of their optical and solar selective behaviors. With the increasing demand for clean energy alternatives, and economically viable energy devices our endeavor might bring some fruitful breakthroughs in development of 3d transition metal oxide and metal nitride based thin film coatings. Due to its flexibility and numerous technical advantages, the soft chemical sol-gel approach has been adopted to synthesize the metal oxides based thin film coatings. Unbalanced mag

The present study focused on the development of transition metal oxide and metal nitride based thin film coatings to be utilized as a cost-effective solar selective surface that constitute a new approach in maximizing the power conversion efficiency. Despite many developments on transition metal oxide and metal nitride based selective solar absorbers, these materials are yet to be commercialized for solar thermal conversion applications. Numerous studies on CuCoO and graphene oxide based thin films are dedicated for their optical applications and light harvesting purposes. However to the best of our knowledge, utilization of mixed metal oxide/graphene oxide thin films as solar selective surface is yet to be explored. Both CuCoO and graphene oxide (GO) have generated significant research interest and have widespread applications in clean energy devices due to the good combinations of many important properties. Therefore, in this work we focus on the introduction of GO to the 3d transition metal-based CuCoO coatings and develop the new types optical thin films via dip-coating sol-gel technology to be used as solar selective surfaces. It is believed that use of graphene oxide in wet chemistry based sol-gel derived thin films will explore the new platform of producing highly efficient selective solar surfaces. Generally, 3d transition metal nitride based thin film coatings are studied for structural, mechanical, and electrical applications. However, a very limited number of investigations are directed in search of their optical and solar selective behaviors. With the increasing demand for clean energy alternatives, and economically viable energy devices our endeavor might bring some fruitful breakthroughs in development of 3d transition metal oxide and metal nitride based thin film coatings. Due to its flexibility and numerous technical advantages, the soft chemical sol-gel approach has been adopted to synthesize the metal oxides based thin film coatings. Unbalanced mag

Potassium manganese oxide (KMn8O16) nanowires were synthesized using a customized hydrothermal method and characterized using scanning-electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometry and thermogravimetric analysis to determine the effects of reaction temperatures and molar ratio of reactants on the crystallinity and morphology of the synthesized nanowires. It was established that increasing the stoichiometric portion of potassium precursors increased the average nanowire diameter though such effect was comparatively less prominent in terms of reaction temperature. Deficient supply of potassium inhibited nanowires growth in which only KMn8O16 (cryptomelane) growth orientations of (211), (301) and (600) were observed along with traces of MnO2, resulting in a wool-like nanowires suspension.

A simple method based on potentiostatic polymerization was developed for the preparation of ternary manganese oxide-based nanocomposite films. The ternary nanocomposites, which were characterized using x-ray diffraction spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, showed that the manganese oxide within the film consisted of MnO2 and Mn2O3. Electrochemical measurements showed that the ternary nanocomposite electrode exhibited high specific capacitance (up to 320.6 F/g), which was attributed to the morphology of a polypyrrole/graphene/manganese-oxide (PPy/GR/MnOx) ternary nanocomposite. The experimental approach maximized the pseudocapacitive contribution from redox-active manganese oxide (MnOx) and polypyrrole (PPy), as well as the electrochemical double layer capacitive (EDLC) characteristic from graphene (GR) sheets. Long cyclic measurements indicated that the specific capacitance of the ternary nanocomposite film could retain 93% of its initial value over 1000 charge/discharge cycles, in the potential range of −0.2 to 0.7 V versus silver/silver chloride electrode (Ag/AgCl).

Potassium manganese oxide (KMn8O16) nanowires were synthesized using a customized hydrothermal method and characterized using scanning-electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometry and thermogravimetric analysis to determine the effects of reaction temperatures and molar ratio of reactants on the crystallinity and morphology of the synthesized nanowires. It was established that increasing the stoichiometric portion of potassium precursors increased the average nanowire diameter though such effect was comparatively less prominent in terms of reaction temperature. Deficient supply of potassium inhibited nanowires growth in which only KMn8O16 (cryptomelane) growth orientations of (211), (301) and (600) were observed along with traces of MnO2, resulting in a wool-like nanowires suspension.

A simple method based on potentiostatic polymerization was developed for the preparation of ternary manganese oxide-based nanocomposite films. The ternary nanocomposites, which were characterized using x-ray diffraction spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, showed that the manganese oxide within the film consisted of MnO2 and Mn2O3. Electrochemical measurements showed that the ternary nanocomposite electrode exhibited high specific capacitance (up to 320.6 F/g), which was attributed to the morphology of a polypyrrole/graphene/manganese-oxide (PPy/GR/MnOx) ternary nanocomposite. The experimental approach maximized the pseudocapacitive contribution from redox-active manganese oxide (MnOx) and polypyrrole (PPy), as well as the electrochemical double layer capacitive (EDLC) characteristic from graphene (GR) sheets. Long cyclic measurements indicated that the specific capacitance of the ternary nanocomposite film could retain 93% of its initial value over 1000 charge/discharge cycles, in the potential range of −0.2 to 0.7 V versus silver/silver chloride electrode (Ag/AgCl).

Novel copper-cobalt oxide thin films with different copper/cobalt molar ratios, namely, [Cu]/[Co] = 0.5, 1, and 2, have been successfully coated on aluminum substrates via a simple and cost-effective sol-gel dip-coating method. Coatings were characterized using high resolution synchrotron radiation X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (SR-XPS) and near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, in combination with nanomechanical testing and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The surfaces of both [Cu]/[Co] = 0.5 and 1 samples consisted primarily of fine granular nanoparticles, whereas the [Cu]/[Co] = 2 has a smoother surface. The analyses reveal that the increase of copper concentration in the synthesis process tends to promote the formation of octahedral Cu2+ which minimizes the development of octahedral Cu+, and these octahedral Cu2+ ions substitute the Co2+ site in cobalt structure host. The local coordinations of Co, Cu and O are not substantially influenced by the change in the copper to cobalt concentration ratios except for the [Cu]/[Co] = 2 coating where the local coordination appears to slightly change due to the loss of octahedral Cu+. The present film coatings are expected to exhibit good wear resistance especially for the [Cu]/[Co] = 1.0 sample due to its high hardness/elastic modulus (H/E) ratio. Finite element modeling (FEM) indicated that, under spherical loading conditions, the high stress and the plastic deformation were predominantly concentrated within the coating layer, without spreading into the substrate.

The search for clean renewable energy sources to fulfil global energy needs, incorporating environmentally-friendly technologies, is currently unabated. Solar thermal collectors are technologies that harness unlimited solar radiation then convert it into usable heat for numerous industries or domestic needs. The solar selective absorber thin film coating is the key component in determining the efficiency of a solar thermal collector. Many challenges still exist in terms of the fabrication of high quality selective absorber material, in order to meet the criteria of better cost-effectiveness and environmentally-friendly characteristics especially in the context of flat-plate absorbers. In this study, novel copper cobalt oxide (CuxCoyOz) thin film coatings on highly reflective aluminium substrate were synthesised via a facile, environmentally friendly and cost-effective sol-gel dip-coating method. The structural, surface morphology and composition, optical properties, mechanical properties and thermal durability were characterised using a wide range of complementary techniques, namely, XRD, FESEM/SEM, EDX, AFM, XPS, synchrotron radiation XPS and NEXAFS, UV-Vis-NIR, FTIR, nanoindentation and FEM modelling, as well as an accelerated thermal durability test. The copper cobalt oxide thin films showed a nano-sized grain-like morphology forming a porous surface structure with distinctively high solar absorptance compared to the manganese- and nickel- cobalt oxide coatings. XRD results demonstrated a relatively weak crystallinity of copper cobalt coating through the annealing temperature of 500 °C, the XPS and EDX analyses corroborated the existence of Cu-O and Co-O bonding structures within different copper cobalt oxide composition ratios. The optimised solar absorptance value of 83.4% was achieved from the copper cobalt oxide thin films synthesised using 0.25 M of copper acetate and 0.25 M cobalt chloride precursors ([Cu]/[Co]=1) with the withdrawal rate of 120 mm/min by f

The search for clean renewable energy sources to fulfil global energy needs, incorporating environmentally-friendly technologies, is currently unabated. Solar thermal collectors are technologies that harness unlimited solar radiation then convert it into usable heat for numerous industries or domestic needs. The solar selective absorber thin film coating is the key component in determining the efficiency of a solar thermal collector. Many challenges still exist in terms of the fabrication of high quality selective absorber material, in order to meet the criteria of better cost-effectiveness and environmentally-friendly characteristics especially in the context of flat-plate absorbers. In this study, novel copper cobalt oxide (CuxCoyOz) thin film coatings on highly reflective aluminium substrate were synthesised via a facile, environmentally friendly and cost-effective sol-gel dip-coating method. The structural, surface morphology and composition, optical properties, mechanical properties and thermal durability were characterised using a wide range of complementary techniques, namely, XRD, FESEM/SEM, EDX, AFM, XPS, synchrotron radiation XPS and NEXAFS, UV-Vis-NIR, FTIR, nanoindentation and FEM modelling, as well as an accelerated thermal durability test. The copper cobalt oxide thin films showed a nano-sized grain-like morphology forming a porous surface structure with distinctively high solar absorptance compared to the manganese- and nickel- cobalt oxide coatings. XRD results demonstrated a relatively weak crystallinity of copper cobalt coating through the annealing temperature of 500 °C, the XPS and EDX analyses corroborated the existence of Cu-O and Co-O bonding structures within different copper cobalt oxide composition ratios. The optimised solar absorptance value of 83.4% was achieved from the copper cobalt oxide thin films synthesised using 0.25 M of copper acetate and 0.25 M cobalt chloride precursors ([Cu]/[Co]=1) with the withdrawal rate of 120 mm/min by f

Three 1-(2-hydroxyethyl)-3-alkylimidazolium chloride room temperature ionic liquids (ILs) [2OHimCn][Cl]; (n=0, 1, 4) have been synthesized from the appropriate imidazole precursors and characterized by IR and NMR spectroscopies and elemental analysis. Their anti-microbial activities were investigated using the well-diffusion method. The viabilities of Escherichia coli, Aeromonas hydrophila, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enterica as a function of IL concentrations were studied. The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and EC50 values for the present ILs were within the concentration range from 60 to 125 mM and 23 to 73 mM. The anti-microbial potencies of the present ILs were compared to a standard antibiotic, gentamicin. The finding affords additional perspective on the level of ILs toxicity to aquatic lifeforms and yet, this characteristic can be readily harnessed to detect microbial growth and activity.