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Abstract Objective This survey aims to comprehensively understand occupational burnout among pre-hospital emergency medical personnel and explore associated risk factors. Methods A cross-sectional online survey using a census method was conducted between 15 July, 2023, and ends on 14 August, 2023, in Chengdu, SiChuan province, China. The questionnaire included general demographic information, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) with 15 items, and the Fatigue Scale-14 (FS-14) with 14 items. Univariate analysis was conducted on all variables, followed by multivariate logistic regression models to examine the associations between occupational burnout and the risk factors. Results A total of 2,299 participants,99.57% completed the survey effectively The participants were from 166 medical institutions in Chengdu, comprising 1,420 nurses (61.50%) and 889 clinical doctors (38.50%). A total of 33.36% participants experienced burnout, predominantly mild (30.27%), followed by moderate (2.78%) and severe (0.3%). Physicians, higher fatigue scores, age, work experience appeared to be related to burnout. Logistic regression models revealed that individuals aged over 50 were less prone to experience burnout compared to medical staff aged 18–30 (OR: 0.269, 95% CI: 0.115–0.627, p = 0.002). Physicians were more prone to experience burnout compared to nursing staff (OR: 0.690, 95% CI: 0.531–0.898, p = 0.006). Those with 0–5 years of experience were more prone to experience burnout compared to those with 6–10 years or over 15 years of experience (OR: 0.734, 95% CI: 0.547–0.986, p = 0.040; OR: 0.559, 95% CI: 0.339–0.924, p = 0.023). Additionally, for each 1-point increase in the fatigue score, the likelihood of burnout in medical staff increased by 1.367 times (OR: 1.367, 95% CI: 1.323–1.412, p

Accurate depth estimation is crucial for many fields, including robotics, navigation, and medical imaging. However, conventional depth sensors often produce low-resolution (LR) depth maps, making detailed scene perception challenging. To address this, enhancing LR depth maps to high-resolution (HR) ones has become essential, guided by HR-structured inputs like RGB or grayscale images. We propose a novel sensor fusion methodology for guided depth super-resolution (GDSR), a technique that combines LR depth maps with HR images to estimate detailed HR depth maps. Our key contribution is the Incremental guided attention fusion (IGAF) module, which effectively learns to fuse features from RGB images and LR depth maps, producing accurate HR depth maps. Using IGAF, we build a robust super-resolution model and evaluate it on multiple benchmark datasets. Our model achieves state-of-the-art results compared to all baseline models on the NYU v2 dataset for ×4, ×8, and ×16 upsampling. It also outperforms all baselines in a zero-shot setting on the Middlebury, Lu, and RGB-D-D datasets. Code, environments, and models are available on GitHub.

Abstract Background Interruption of parasite reproduction by targeting migrating schistosomula is a promising strategy for managing schistosomiasis. Hepatic schistosomula proteins previously identified based on second-generation schistosome DNA sequencing were found to hold excellent potential for schistosomiasis japonica diagnosis and as vaccine candidates. However, there are still many unknown schistosomula proteins that warrant further investigations. Herein, a novel schistosomula protein, the Schistosoma japonicum erythroid Krüppel-like factor (SjEKLF/KLF1), was explored. Methods Sequence alignment was carried out to detect the amino acid sequence characteristics of SjEKLF. The expression profile of SjEKLF was determined by western blot and immunofluorescence analysis. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to determine the antigenicity of SjEKLF in hosts. Mice immunised with recombinant SjEKLF were challenged to test the potential value of the protein as an immunoprotective target. Results SjEKLF is defined as EKLF/KLF1 for its C-terminal DNA-binding domain. SjEKLF is mainly expressed in hepatic schistosomula and male adults and located within the intestinal intima of the parasites. Notably, high levels of SjEKLF-specific antibodies were detected in host sera and SjEKLF exhibited outstanding sensitivity and specificity for schistosomiasis japonica immunodiagnosis but failed to distinguish between ongoing infection and previous exposure. In addition, SjEKLF immunisation reduced the infection in vivo, resulting in decreased worm and egg counts, and alleviated body weight loss and hepatomegaly in infected mice. Conclusions Overall, these findings demonstrate that SjEKLF is critical for the infection of S. japonicum and may be a potential target to help control S. japonicum infection and transmission. Graphical Abstract

The effects of citric acid addition coupled with pH on cell growth, metabolism, and spore yield of B. licheniformis were studied in a 30 L bioreactor, and the gene expression differences related to energy metabolism, oxidative stress effect, and amino acid transport at the log-phase were examined by qPCR. Results showed that: Citric acid supplement coupled with pH7.5 during 19.5~28 h was conducted, reaching a final content of 78 μmol/L in the medium. The feeding strategy prolonged the periods of cell growth and spore formation, and the peak cells (36 h) reached 4.2×1010 CFU/mL that was 42.9% higher than the control (without citric acid supplement). Meanwhile, spore yield (36 h) reached 4.1×1010 CFU/mL, increased by 215.4% compared with the control (24 h, 1.3×1010 CFU/mL). The qPCR assays showed that the expression levels of icd, zwf and cydA was 2.6, 4.1 and 1.9 times higher than that of the control, respectively. Meanwhile, brnQ, vpr, yvbW, katA, yqjM, ahpF, sodA and abrB were decreased by 88%, 18%, 65%, 89%, 10%, 90%, 41% and 60% compared with the control, respectively. The data suggested that citric acid supplementation enhanced the efficiencies of TCA cycle, HMP pathway and electron transport, weakened the oxidative stress effects on cells, and improved the phosphorylation level of Spo0A, thus promoting the sporulation efficiency. The results would provide theoretical supports for the industrial production of Bacillus fermentation efficiently.

Severe consequences can ensue from the rupture and hemorrhage of a renal artery pseudoaneurysm, necessitating immediate intervention upon detection. To date, no reports exist on the development of renal artery pseudoaneurysms as a result of renal abscesses. This document introduces the first reported case of this occurrence.

Long-term and stable preservation of bacteriophages is of crucial importance. Although many efforts have been made in the past decades to explore the influence of external factors on bacteriophage preservation, there is still little understanding, and a systematic description is lacking. In this study, we explored the influence of different factors on the preservation of lytic bacteriophage VP3, one of the typing bacteriophages of Vibrio cholerae O1 biotype El Tor, and attempted to optimize its preservation. We examined external factors, including temperature, solution, and cryoprotectant, in stable cooling/freezing conditions or alternate cooling/freezing and thawing. We found that whether in Luria-Bertani (LB) medium or SM buffer, in terms of 20-week stable cooling or freezing, −20 °C was the most damaging while 4 °C, −80 °C, and −196 °C were protective. Thirteen cycles of alternate cooling/freezing and thawing caused a loss in the survival rates of bacteriophages. The addition of cryoprotectant, glycerol (30%, w/v) or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO, 10%, w/v) significantly improved the survival rates of bacteriophages preserved at −20 °C. However, at 4 °C, −80 °C, and −196 °C, the cryoprotectant effect was only slightly positive or even harmful. In summary, for bacteriophage VP3, the best preservation method is to directly preserve the bacteriophage stocks in LB medium at −80 °C or −196 °C instead of storing them in SM buffer or adding cryoprotectant. Our results provided insights into the external influencing factors on bacteriophage VP3 during preservation at low temperature and can be applied to the optimization of bacteriophage preservation in the future.

This paper aims to provide an efficient and straightforward structural form-finding method for designers to extrapolate component forms during the conceptual stage. The core idea is to optimize the classical method of structural form-finding based on principal stress lines by using parametric tools. The traditional operating process of this method relies excessively on the designer's engineering experience and lacks precision. Meanwhile, the current optimization work for this method is overly complicated for architects, and limitations in component type and final result exist. Therefore, to facilitate an architect's conceptual work, the optimization metrics of the method in this paper are set as simplicity, practicality, freedom, and rapid feedback. For that reason, this paper optimizes the method from three aspects: modeling strategy for continuum structures, classification processing of data by using the k-nearest neighbor algorithm, and topological form-finding process based on stress lines. Eventually, it allows architects to create structural texture with formal aesthetics and modify it in real time on the basis of structural analysis results. This paper also explores a comprehensive application strategy with internal force analysis diagramming to form-finding. The finite element analysis tool Karamba3D verifies the structural performance of the form-finding method. The performance is compared with that of the conventional form, and the comparison results show the practicality and potential of the strategy in this paper.

China is gradually becoming an aging society, and the necessity for prehospital first-aid care is increasing. However, there is a long-term information blind spot in traditional prehospital first-aid care. Fifth-generation (5G) network has the advantages of enhanced broadband, multiple connections, and low latency. Combined with the current prehospital first-aid system, the 5G smart medical prehospital first-aid care model creates a new opportunity for the development of prehospital first-aid care. This paper aimed to describe the 5G smart first-aid care platform and offers practical insights into the construction and application of the 5G smart first-aid care platform in small- and medium-sized cities. We first introduced the working principle of the 5G smart first-aid care platform and then chose patients with prehospital chest pain as an example to describe the whole workflow in detail. The application of the 5G smart emergency-care platform is at the stage of pilot exploration in large- and medium-sized cities. Big data statistical analysis of the completed first-aid care tasks has not been performed yet. The 5G smart first-aid care platform realizes real-time interconnection of information between the ambulance and the hospital, performs remote consultation, shortens the treatment time, and enhances treatment efficiency. Future research should focus on quality control analysis of the 5G smart first-aid care platform.

ObjectiveThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are considered to be an effective way to prevent the spread of the infection. Our previous study has shown that about 75% of healthcare workers (HCWs) in China were willing to receive the vaccine when it became available. Here, we examined the acceptance of a third booster dose among Chinese people and identified the influencing factors.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted and the snowball sampling method was utilized. An online questionnaire was provided to all the participants in the form of a quick response (QR) code. The questionnaire included general demographic information, views on vaccines, the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). The univariate analysis was done between all the variables and our dependent variable. Then, we used the multivariate logistic regression model to examine the influencing factors of the third booster dose acceptance.ResultsWe collected 1,062 complete answers. Of these, 90.39% (n = 960) declared that they would accept the booster dose. Knowing more about the vaccine and recognizing the efficacy of vaccines were significantly associated with greater acceptance of the booster dose. People willing to take the booster dose had better psychological health. A belief that the booster dose could prevent severe infection caused by COVID-19 and enhance the effectiveness of the first two doses were the main contributing factors to vaccine acceptance. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly due to a low perceived risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and rapid mutation of SARS-CoV-2.ConclusionThis study revealed that Chinese people were very receptive to the third booster dose, which is an inspiring result. More positive attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccination were supported by its efficacy and few side effects.

The most recent 3D object detectors for point clouds rely on the coarse voxel-based representation rather than the accurate point-based representation due to a higher box recall in the voxel-based Region Proposal Network (RPN). However, the detection accuracy is severely restricted by the information loss of pose details in the voxels. Different from considering the point cloud as voxel or point representation only, we propose a point-to-voxel feature learning approach to voxelize the point cloud with both the point-wise semantic and local spatial features, which maintains the voxel-wise features to build the high-recall voxel-based RPN and also provides the accurate point-wise features for refining the detection results. Another difficulty in object detection for point cloud is that the visible part varies a lot against the full view of object because of the perspective issues in data acquisition. To address this, we propose an attentive corner aggregation module to attentively aggregate the features of local point cloud surrounding a 3D proposal from the perspectives of eight corners in the proposal 3D bounding box. The experimental results on the competitive KITTI 3D object detection benchmark show that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance.

Objective The effects of maternal and offspring dietary vitamin A (VA) supplementation on early body weight, digestive tract function and immune function in goslings were studied. Methods Yangzhou geese (180 d old) were randomly divided into 5 experimental groups of 15 females and 3 males (the males were kept until slaughter). Eggs were collected for hatching during the peak laying period. A total of 96 goslings were selected from each treatment group (each fed a basic diet supplemented with 0, 4,000, 8,000, 12,000 or 16,000 IU/kg VA) and randomly divided into 2 groups, with 6 replicates in each group and 8 goslings in each replicate. The gosling diet was supplemented with 0 or 9,000 IU/kg VA. Results i) Villus length, villus width and the muscle thickness of the duodenum, jejunum and ileum were increased and the crypt depth was reduced after adding 12,000 IU/kg VA to the goslings’ diet (p

Abstract Background Members of the genus Proteus are mostly opportunistic pathogens that cause a variety of infections in humans. The molecular evolutionary characteristics and genetic relationships among Proteus species have not been elucidated to date. In this study, we developed a multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) approach based on five housekeeping genes (HKGs) to delineate phylogenetic relationships of species within the genus Proteus. Results Of all 223 Proteus strains collected in the current study, the phylogenetic tree of five concatenated HKGs (dnaJ, mdh, pyrC, recA and rpoD) divided 223 strains into eleven clusters, which were representative of 11 species of Proteus. Meanwhile, the phylogenetic trees of the five individual HKGs also corresponded to that of the concatenated tree, except for recA, which clustered four strains at an independent cluster. The evaluation of inter- and intraspecies distances of HKG concatenation indicated that all interspecies distances were significantly different from intraspecies distances, which revealed that these HKG concatenations can be used as gene markers to distinguish different Proteus species. Further web-based DNA-DNA hybridization estimated by genome of type strains confirmed the validity of the MLSA, and each of eleven clusters was congruent with the most abundant Proteus species. In addition, we used the established MLSA method to identify the randomly collected Proteus and found that P. mirabilis is the most abundant species. However, the second most abundant species is P. terrae but not P. vulgaris. Combined with the genetic, genomic and phenotypic characteristics, these findings indicate that three species, P. terrae, P. cibarius and Proteus genospecies 5, should be regarded as heterotypic synonyms, and the species should be renamed P. terrae, while Proteus genospecies 5 has not been named to date. Conclusions This study suggested that MLSA is a powerful method for the discrimination and classification of Proteus at the species level. The MLSA scheme provides a rapid and inexpensive means of identifying Proteus strains. The identification of Proteus species determined by the MLSA approach plays an important role in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of Proteus infection.

Abstract Epigenetic variants broaden phenotypic diversity in eukaryotes. Epialleles may also provide a new genetic source for crop breeding, but very few epialleles related to agricultural traits have been identified in rice. Here, we identified Epi-sp, a gain-of-function epiallele of the rice ESP (Epigenetic Short Panicle, Os01g0356951), which encodes a putative long noncoding RNA. The Epi-sp plants show a dense and short panicle phenotype, an agronomically important phenotypes that is inherited in a semidominant manner. We did not find any nucleotide sequence variation in ESP. Instead, we found hypomethylation in the transcriptional termination region (TTR) of ESP gene, which caused ectopic expression of ESP in Epi-sp plants. Bisulfite analysis revealed that the methylation status of 26 CGs and 13 CHGs within a continuous 313-bp region is essential for the regulation of ESP expression. Thus, our work identified a unique rice epiallele and demonstrated that epigenetic modification of ESP is associated with the regulation of panicle architecture in rice.

Objective To compare the outcomes of patients with non-traumatic cardiac arrest (CA) who received early versus late mechanical cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with the Lund University Cardiac Assist System (LUCAS) device in the emergency department (ED). Methods This was a retrospective observational study in the ED of a single medical center performed from May 2018 to December 2019; 68 patients with CA were eligible. We grouped the patients according to the time to initiating LUCAS use after CA into an early group (≤4 minutes) and late group (>4 minutes). Results The rate of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) was higher in the early group vs the late group (69.2% vs 52.4%, respectively). The 4-hour survival rate was significantly higher in the early group vs the late group (83.3% vs 45.5%, respectively), and CPR duration was significantly shorter in the early group (23.3 ± 12.5 vs 31.1 ± 14.8 minutes, respectively). Conclusion Early mechanical CPR can improve the success of achieving ROSC and the 4-hour survival rate in patients with non-traumatic CA in the ED, considering that more benefits were observed in patients who received early vs late LUCAS device therapy.

Objective: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine is currently available. This timely survey was conducted to provide insight into on the willingness of healthcare workers (HCWs)to receive the vaccine and determine the influencing factors.Methods: This was a cross-sectional online survey. An online questionnaire was provided to all participants and they were asked if they would accept a free vaccine. The questionnaire gathered general demographic information, and included the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12); Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire (MBTI); Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21); and the 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12). The data were collected automatically and electronically. Univariate analysis was done between all the variables and our dependent variable. Multivariable logistic regression models were employed to examine and identify the associations between the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine with the associated variables.Results: We collected 505 complete answers. The participants included 269 nurses (53.27%), 206 clinicians (40.79%), 15 administrative staff (2.97%), and 15 other staff (2.97%). Of these, 76.63% declared they would accept the vaccine. The major barriers were concerns about safety, effectiveness, and the rapid mutation in the virus. Moreover, four factors were significantly associated with the willingness to receive the vaccine: (a) “understanding of the vaccine” (odds ratio (OR):2.322; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.355 to 3.979); (b) “worried about experiencing COVID-19” (OR 1.987; 95% CI: 1.197–3.298); (c) “flu vaccination in 2020” (OR 4.730; 95% CI: 2.285 to 9.794); and (d) “living with elderly individuals” (OR 1.928; 95% CI: 1.074–3.462).Conclusions: During the vaccination period, there was still hesitation in receiving the vaccine. The results will provide a rationale for the design of future vaccination campaigns and education efforts concerning the vaccine.

Staphylococcus spp., especially Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), is an important pathogen in hospital-acquired infection and food poisoning. Here, we developed a multienzyme isothermal rapid amplification combined with duplex quantitative PCR (duplex MIRA-qPCR) method, which can simultaneously detect the S. aureus species-specific conserved gene FMN-bgsfp and the Staphylococcus genus-specific conserved gene tuf. This assay enabled the amplification of DNA within 20 min at a constant temperature of 39 °C. Specificity analysis indicated that all nine common Staphylococcus species were positive and non-Staphylococcus spp. were negative for tuf gene, whereas S. aureus was positive, non-aureus Staphylococci species and non-Staphylococcus spp. were negative for FMN-bgsfp gene, suggesting that duplex MIRA-qPCR exhibited high specificity. Meanwhile, the sensitivity was tested and the limit of detection (LoD) was 3 × 102 CFU/mL. The coefficient variation values ranged from 0.13% to 2.09%, indicating that the assay had good repeatability. Furthermore, all the nine common Staphylococcus species (including S. aureus) could be detected from four kinds of simulated samples and the LoD of S. aureus was 8.56 × 103 CFU/mL. In conclusion, the duplex MIRA-qPCR has advantages of stronger specificity, lower detection threshold, shorter detection time, and simpler operation, which is an effective tool to detect S. aureus and non-aureus Staphylococci spp. infections rapidly.

Shewanella species are widely distributed in the aquatic environment and aquatic organisms. They are opportunistic human pathogens with increasing clinical infections reported in recent years. However, there is a lack of a rapid and accurate method to identify Shewanella species. We evaluated here matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for rapid identification of Shewanella. A peptide mass reference spectra (PMRS) database was constructed for the type strains of 36 Shewanella species. The main spectrum projection (MSP) cluster dendrogram showed that the type strains of Shewanella species can be effectively distinguished according to the different MS fingerprinting. The PMRS database was validated using 125 Shewanella test strains isolated from various sources and periods; 92.8% (n = 116) of the strains were correctly identified at the species level, compared with the results of multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA), which was previously shown to be a method for identifying Shewanella at the species level. The misidentified strains (n = 9) by MALDI-TOF MS involved five species of two groups, i.e., Shewanella algae–Shewanella chilikensis–Shewanella indica and Shewanella seohaensis–Shewanella xiamenensis. We then identified and defined species-specific biomarker peaks of the 36 species using the type strains and validated these selected biomarkers using 125 test strains. Our study demonstrated that MALDI-TOF MS was a reliable and powerful tool for the rapid identification of Shewanella strains at the species level.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of arginine on the growth performance, hormones, digestive organ development and intestinal morphology of chicks of laying hens. A total of three hundred 1-d-old male Lohmann Brown chicks were randomly assigned to five groups, each with six replicate sets of 10 birds. The five groups were fed different diets containing 1.19, 1.44, 1.69, 1.94 or 2.19% arginine from 1 d to 42 d of age. The results showed that dietary levels of arginine had a significant effect on body weight at 14, 28 and 42 d (p

The reported data deal with the derivation of the equation of isostatic line of compression (ILC) and splitting force in a bottle-shaped strut with different height-to-width ratios. The final data show that the splitting force in a bottle-shaped strut is not only related to the height-to-width ratio (h/b), but also related to the load area ratio. Keywords: Derivation of the equation, ILC, Splitting force, Bottle-shaped strut, Height-to-width ratios

Although there has been a lot of research in multi-label learning task, little attention has been paid on the weak label problem, in which only a subset of labels has been assigned to each instance in the training set. The extreme form of weak label learning is to predict all the labels from just one label set in the training phase. In this paper, we focus on dealing with this kind of weak label learning task, which is commonly met in old legacy information system, and it is also called “Hercules Learning.”We propose a label-group-optimization-based Hercules learning algorithm, which divides the entire label set into multiple groups according to the classifier's capability to distinguish them, so for each group, we can train a classifier which can predict instance's label within the group with high accuracy. The experimental results show that our algorithm is obviously superior to the existing weak label learning algorithm.

The rapid growth of scientific papers makes it difficult to find relevant and appropriate citations. Context-aware citation recommendation aims to overcome this problem by providing a list of scientific papers given a short passage of text. In this paper, we propose a long-short-term memory (LSTM)based model for context-aware citation recommendation, which first learns the distributed representations of the citation contexts and the scientific papers separately based on LSTM, and then measures the relevance based on the learned distributed representation of citation contexts and the scientific papers. Finally, the scientific papers with high relevance scores are selected as the recommendation list. In particular, we try to incorporate author information, venue information, and content information in scientific paper distributed vector representation. Furthermore, we integrate author information of the given context in citation context distributed vector representation. Thus, the proposed model makes personalized context-aware citation recommendation possible, which is a new issue that few papers addressed in the past. When conducting experiments on the ACL Anthology Network and DBLP data sets, the results demonstrate the proposed LSTM-based model for context-aware citation recommendation is able to achieve considerable improvement over previous context-aware citation recommendation approaches. The personalized recommendation approach is also competitive with the non-personalized recommendation approach.

Heterogeneous information network (HIN), which contains various types of nodes and links, has been applied in recommender systems. Although HIN-based recommendation approaches perform better than the traditional recommendation approaches, they still have the following problems: for example, meta-paths are manually selected, not automatically; meta-path representations are rarely explicitly learned; and the global and local information of each node in HIN has not been simultaneously explored. To solve the above deficiencies, we propose a tri-attention neural network (TANN) model for recommendation task. The proposed TANN model applies the stud genetic algorithm to automatically select meta-paths at first. Then, it learns global and local representations of each node, as well as the representations of meta-paths existing in HIN. After that, a tri-attention mechanism is proposed to enhance the mutual influence among users, items, and their related meta-paths. Finally, the encoded interaction information among the user, the item, and their related meta-paths, which contain more semantic information can be used for recommendation task. Extensive experiments on the Douban Movie, MovieLens, and Yelp datasets have demonstrated the outstanding performance of the proposed approach.

The genus Vibrio is ubiquitous in marine environments and uses numerous evolutionary characteristics and survival strategies in order to occupy its niche. Here, a newly identified species, Vibrio fujianensis, was deeply explored to reveal a unique environmental adaptability. V. fujianensis type strain FJ201301T shared 817 core genes with the Vibrio species in the population genomic analysis, but possessed unique genes of its own. In addition, V. fujianensis FJ201301T was predicated to carry 106 virulence-related factors, several of which were mostly found in other pathogenic Vibrio species. Moreover, a comparative transcriptome analysis between the low-salt (1% NaCl) and high-salt (8% NaCl) condition was conducted to identify the genes involved in salt tolerance. A total of 913 unigenes were found to be differentially expressed. In a high-salt condition, 577 genes were significantly upregulated, whereas 336 unigenes were significantly downregulated. Notably, differentially expressed genes have a significant association with ribosome structural component and ribosome metabolism, which may play a role in salt tolerance. Transcriptional changes in ribosome genes indicate that V. fujianensis may have gained a predominant advantage in order to adapt to the changing environment. In conclusion, to survive in adversity, V. fujianensis has enhanced its environmental adaptability and developed various strategies to fill its niche.

Escherichia coli is both of a widespread harmless gut commensal and a versatile pathogen of humans. Domestic animals are a well-known reservoir for pathogenic E. coli. However, studies of E. coli populations from wild animals that have been separated from human activities had been very limited. Here we obtained 580 isolates from intestinal contents of 116 wild Marmot Marmota himalayana from Qinghai–Tibet plateau, China, with five isolates per animal. We selected 125 (hereinafter referred to as strains) from the 580 isolates for genome sequencing, based on unique pulse field gel electrophoresis patterns and at least one isolate per animal. Whole genome sequence analysis revealed that all 125 strains carried at least one and the majority (79.2%) carried multiple virulence genes based on the analysis of 22 selected virulence genes. In particular, the majority of the strains carried virulence genes from different pathovars as potential 'hybrid pathogens'. The alleles of eight virulence genes from the Marmot E. coli were found to have diverged earlier than all known alleles from human and other animal E. coli. Phylogenetic analysis of the 125 Marmot E. coli genomes and 355 genomes selected from 1622 human and other E. coli strains identified two new phylogroups, G and H, both of which diverged earlier than the other phylogroups. Eight of the 12 well-known pathogenic E. coli lineages were found to share a most recent common ancestor with one or more Marmot E. coli strains. Our results suggested that the intestinal E. coli of the Marmots contained a diverse virulence gene pool and is potentially pathogenic to humans. These findings provided a new understanding of the evolutionary origin of pathogenic E. coli.Emerging Microbes & Infections (2016) 5, e122; doi:10.1038/emi.2016.122; published online 7 December 2016

The striking rise of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections has become a serious threat to public health worldwide. In an effort to search for new anti-MRSA agents from natural products, a bioassay-guided phytochemical study was conducted on the semi-mangrove plant Myoporum bontioides A. Gray, which led to the isolation of two new sesquiterpene alkaloids (1 and 2) and six known furanosesquiterpenes (3⁻8). Their structures were elucidated on the basis of extensive analysis of their 1D, 2D NMR and mass spectroscopic data. These two new alkaloids (1 and 2) displayed potent anti-MRSA activity with MIC value of 6.25 μg/mL. This is the first report of sesquiterpene alkaloids from the plants of Myoporum genus and their anti-MRSA activity.

We present a fully-automatic image processing pipeline to build a set of 2D morphable models of three craniofacial profiles from orthogonal viewpoints, side view, front view and top view, using a set of 3D head surface images. Subjects in this dataset wear a close-fitting latex cap to reveal the overall skull shape. Texture-based 3D pose normalization and facial landmarking are applied to extract the profiles from 3D raw scans. Fully-automatic profile annotation, subdivision and registration methods are used to establish dense correspondence among sagittal profiles. The collection of sagittal profiles in dense correspondence are scaled and aligned using Generalised Procrustes Analysis (GPA), before applying principal component analysis to generate a morphable model. Additionally, we propose a new alternative alignment called the Ellipse Centre Nasion (ECN) method. Our model is used in a case study of craniosynostosis intervention outcome evaluation, and the evaluation reveals that the proposed model achieves state-of-the-art results. We make publicly available both the morphable models and the profile dataset used to construct it.

Using sophoridine 1 and chalcone 3 as the lead compounds, a series of novel α, β-unsaturated sophoridinic derivatives were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxicity. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) analysis indicated that introduction of α, β-unsaturated ketone moiety and heterocyclic group might significantly enhance anticancer activity. Among the compounds, 2f and 2m exhibited potential effects against HepG-2 and CNE-2 human cancer cell lines. Furthermore, molecular docking studies were performed to understand possible docking sites of the molecules on the target proteins and the mode of binding. This work provides a theoretical basis for structural optimizations and exploring anticancer pathways of this kind of compound.

A loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for rapid and sensitive detection of the L. ivanovii strains had been developed and evaluated in this study. Oligonucleotide primers specific for L. ivanovii species were designed corresponding to smcL gene sequences. The primers set comprise six primers targeting eight regions on the species-specific gene smcL. The LAMP assay could be completed within 1 h at 64°C in a water bath. Amplification products were directly observed by the Loopamp Fluorescent Detection Reagent (FD) or detected by agarose gel electrophoresis. Moreover, the LAMP reactions were also detected by real-time measurement of turbidity. The exclusivity of 77 non-L. ivanovii and the inclusivity of 17 L. ivanovii were both 100% in the assay. Sensitivity of the LAMP assay was 250 fg DNA and 16 CFU per reaction for detection of L. ivanovii in pure cultures and simulated human stool. The LAMP assay was 10 and 100-fold more sensitive than quantitative PCR (qPCR) and conventional PCR assays,respectively. When applied to human stool samples spiked with low level (8 CFU/0.5 g) of L. ivanovii strains, the new LAMP assay described here achieved positive detection after 6 hours enrichment. In conclusion, the new LAMP assay in this study can be used as a valuable, rapid and sensitive detection tool for the detection of L. ivanovii in field, medical and veterinary laboratories.