• Law Valentin posted an update 5 days, 11 hours ago

    The performance of the system, requiring only 50 µl analyte has been evaluated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and validated against commercially available ELISA kit. this website Limit of detection of 1 fg/ml in human serum with 6.5% coefficient of variation has been demonstrated, which is more than three orders of magnitude lower than the existing attempts on PoC device.Longitudinal phase space (LPS) provides a critical information about electron beam dynamics for various scientific applications. For example, it can give insight into the high-brightness X-ray radiation from a free electron laser. Existing diagnostics are invasive, and often times cannot operate at the required resolution. In this work we present a machine learning-based Virtual Diagnostic (VD) tool to accurately predict the LPS for every shot using spectral information collected non-destructively from the radiation of relativistic electron beam. We demonstrate the tool’s accuracy for three different case studies with experimental or simulated data. For each case, we introduce a method to increase the confidence in the VD tool. We anticipate that spectral VD would improve the setup and understanding of experimental configurations at DOE’s user facilities as well as data sorting and analysis. The spectral VD can provide confident knowledge of the longitudinal bunch properties at the next generation of high-repetition rate linear accelerators while reducing the load on data storage, readout and streaming requirements.Salicylic acid (SAL) has recently been shown to induce biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus and to affect the expression of virulence factors. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of SAL on the regulatory agr system and its impact on S. aureus biofilm formation. The agr quorum-sensing system, which is a central regulator in S. aureus pathogenicity, plays a pivotal role in the dispersal of S. aureus mature biofilms and contributes to the creation of new colonization sites. Here, we demonstrate that SAL impairs biofilm dispersal by interfering with agr expression. As revealed by our work, protease and surfactant molecule production is diminished, and bacterial cell autolysis is also negatively affected by SAL. Furthermore, as a consequence of SAL treatment, the S. aureus biofilm matrix revealed the lack of extracellular DNA. In silico docking and simulation of molecular dynamics provided evidence for a potential interaction of AgrA and SAL, resulting in reduced activity of the agr system. In conclusion, SAL stabilized the mature S. aureus biofilms, which may prevent bacterial cell dissemination. However, it may foster the establishment of infections locally and consequently increase bacterial persistence leading to therapeutic failure.The anisotropy in resonant tunneling transport through an electrostatic barrier in monolayer black phosphorus either in presence or in absence of an oscillating potential is studied. Non-perturbative Floquet theory is applied to solve the time dependent problem and the results obtained are discussed thoroughly. The resonance spectra in field free transmission are Lorentzian in nature although the width of the resonance for the barrier along the zigzag (Г-Y) direction is too thinner than that for the armchair (Г-X) one. Resonant transmission is suppressed for both the cases by the application of oscillating potential that produces small oscillations in the transmission around the resonant energy particularly at low frequency range. Sharp asymmetric Fano resonances are noted in the transmission spectrum along the armchair direction while a distinct line shape resonance is noted for the zigzag direction at higher frequency of the oscillating potential. Even after the angular average, the conductance along the Г-X direction retains the characteristic Fano features that could be observed experimentally. The present results are supposed to suggest that the phosphorene electrostatic barrier could be used successfully as switching devices and nano detectors.Dysbiosis of the gut microbiome has been associated with the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). We profiled the microbiome of gut mucosal tissues from 18 CRC patients and 18 non-CRC controls of the UKM Medical Centre (UKMMC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results were then validated using a species-specific quantitative PCR in 40 CRC and 20 non-CRC tissues samples from the UMBI-UKMMC Biobank. Parvimonas micra, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Peptostreptococcus stomatis and Akkermansia muciniphila were found to be over-represented in our CRC patients compared to non-CRC controls. These four bacteria markers distinguished CRC from controls (AUROC = 0.925) in our validation cohort. We identified bacteria species significantly associated (cut-off value of > 5 fold abundance) with various CRC demographics such as ethnicity, gender and CRC staging; however, due to small sample size of the discovery cohort, these results could not be further verified in our validation cohort. In summary, Parvimonas micra, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Peptostreptococcus stomatis and Akkermansia muciniphila were enriched in our local CRC patients. Nevertheless, the roles of these bacteria in CRC initiation and progression remains to be investigated.The Plasmodium falciparum M1 alanyl aminopeptidase and M17 leucyl aminopeptidase, PfM1AAP and PfM17LAP, are potential targets for novel anti-malarial drug development. Inhibitors of these aminopeptidases have been shown to kill malaria parasites in culture and reduce parasite growth in murine models. The two enzymes may function in the terminal stages of haemoglobin digestion, providing free amino acids for protein synthesis by the rapidly growing intra-erythrocytic parasites. Here we have performed a comparative cellular and biochemical characterisation of the two enzymes. Cell fractionation and immunolocalisation studies reveal that both enzymes are associated with the soluble cytosolic fraction of the parasite, with no evidence that they are present within other compartments, such as the digestive vacuole (DV). Enzyme kinetic studies show that the optimal pH of both enzymes is in the neutral range (pH 7.0-8.0), although PfM1AAP also possesses some activity ( less then  20%) at the lower pH range of 5.0-5.5.