Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the COVID19-causing virus, is a zoonotic pathogen. There is concern that it may spillover into wildlife species which may then serve as reservoirs for future infection of humans, domestic animals, or other wildlife species. Furthermore, impacts of the virus on potentially susceptible wildlife species are currently unknown. There is, therefore, an urgent need to develop a single test that could be used for the serosurveillance of multiple wildlife species for exposure to SARS-CoV-2. While serological tests to detect antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infected and/or exposed human patients have been developed, few assays have the capacity to detect antibodies in a wide variety of species. Here, we describe the development of a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA) to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in animals for which species-specific reagents are not available. This cELISA was developed to detect SARS-CoV-2 spike 1 (S1), spike 2 (S2) and nucleocapsid (N) specific antibodies and was validated using sera from experimentally infected hamsters. We further validated our cELISA by comparing it with results obtained from the surrogate virus neutralization test (cPASS, GenScript) and indirect ELISA using anti-hamster horse radish peroxidase (HRP) conjugated reagents. This cELISA will have broad applications in screening potential animal reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2, and uses multiple targets, including more conserved structural proteins which are subjected to less selective immunological pressure. These would allow detection of exposure to variants missed by conventional assays that target antibodies against the viral receptor binding domain. This assay will be a valuable tool which can be implemented in surveillance programs investigating evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in multiple domestic, captive, or wild animal species, and in studies investigating impacts of SARS-CoV-2 on wildlife populations.

Background: Dental caries is a global public health problem, being the most common non-communicable disease. Streptococcus mutans is the causative agent that develops cariogenic dental biofilms in humans due to its ability to produce glycosyltransferases (Gtfs). These Gtfs act in the exopolysaccharides synthesis (EPS) that form biofilms. The gene expression encoding Gtfs is modulated by the VicRK system, which are promising targets for dental biofilm inhibitor developments. Objective: Predict druggable sites of Streptococcus mutans VicK protein through molecular docking with catechols. Methods: The prediction of VicK druggable sites was performed by PockDrug and FTMap servers. From these data, a virtual screening of 383 catechols was performed on AutoDock4.2. After docking analysis some ligand efficiency indexes were calculated: LE, LELP, LLE and BEI. Results: Three interaction sites (S1, S2 and S3) were predicted for VicK, covering most important residues for its stability and enzymatic activity. The catechols selected by the virtual screening interacted with main amino acids for VicK auto kinase, and phosphatase activity and showed optimal values ​​of ligand efficiency (LE, LELP, LLE and BEI). Conclusion: After Virtual Screening calculations, some catechols interacted favorably with essential residues for VicK autokinase and phosphatase activities and presented optimal values ​​of ligand efficiency (LE, LELP, LLE and BEI). Thus, catechols are promising compounds for future in vitro tests aiming to develop new anticariogenic and antimicrobial agents.

Background: Cereblon, an extensively studied multifunctional protein, is a Cullin 4-RING E3 ubiquitin ligase complex component and a well-known target of thalidomide and its derivatives. Cereblon is involved in the apoptosis of multiple myeloma cells. When ligands such as lenalidomide bind to cereblon, it recognizes various neosubstrates based on the ligand shape and properties. We have identified novel CRBN inhibitors, namely DHFO and its analogs, with structural features that are slightly different from thalidomide but stronger cereblon-binding affinity. We selected indanedione and indanone derivatives from the literature to understand and compare their cereblon-mediated substrate recognition potential. Methods: Computational investigations of possible cereblon inhibitors were investigated by molecular docking. ADME/T and drug-likeness properties of the molecules were studied. A molecular dynamics study was carried out for selected molecules, and the molecular interactions were analyzed using PCA-based FEL methods. The binding affinity was calculated using the MM-PBSA method. Results: We conducted computational investigations on 68 indanedione and indanone derivatives binding with cereblon. Ten molecules showed better CRBN binding affinity than thalidomide. We studied the drug-likeness properties of the selected ten molecules, and four of the most promising molecules (DHFO, THOH, DIMS, and DTIN) were chosen for molecular dynamics studies. The MM/PBSA calculations showed that the DHFO, already shown to be a 5-LOX/COX2 inhibitor, has the highest binding affinity of -163.16 KJ/mol with cereblon. Conclusion: The selected CRBN inhibitor DHFO has demonstrated the highest binding affinity with cereblon protein compared to other molecules. DHFO creates an interaction hotspot on the cereblon surface, thereby serving as a novel alternative for thalidomide and its derivatives. Ease of chemical synthesis, low toxicity, versatile therapeutic options, and pleiotropism of DHPO analogues provide an opportunity for exploring clinical alternatives with versatile therapeutic potential for a new category of indanedione molecules as novel modulators of E3 ubiquitin ligases.

1. Camera traps are popular for monitoring animal populations and communities, primarily because they eliminate physical handling of animals. However, image acquisition typically outpaces information extraction. Most deep-learning based animal classifiers do not localize animals, limiting their applicability. Existing networks that localize animals have relatively high training data and hardware requirements. 2. To reduce the hardware and training data requirements, we extended the the Machine Learning for Wildlife Image Classification network (MLWIC2) to a Faster R-CNN. MLWIC2 is currently the most accurate wildlife classification network, and also the shallowest at 18 layers. We compared our model’s performance at object localization, species identification, and deployment speed to the performance of a generically pre-trained 50-layer Faster R-CNN to determine a) relative importance of task similarity in pre-training vs. backbone depth, b) whether additionally finetuning the backbones during training is advantageous c) whether the Faster R-CNN architecture benefits from incorporating the feature pyramid network (FPN) and cascading pyramid network (CPN) modules, and d) how backbone depth and the additional modules affect deployment speeds. 3. We found that the deeper network provides a slight advantage for classification accuracy, while the shallower network with higher task similarity produces a slight advantage for object localization. The additional modules provided dramatic gains for the 18 layer backbone for both classification and localization. On a NVIDIA 1080-ti gpu, the 18-layer backbone trains ~ 30% faster than the 50-layer backbone. In deployment the 18-layer backbone is 2.5x faster than the 50-layer backbone, and 9.4x faster than Megadetector. These results show that backbone network task similarity, paired with the FPN and CPN modules, can substitute for depth, which improves deployment speeds. Our model is suitable for modest hardware and for integration into more complex pipelines. These are important steps towards the automation of data acquisition from camera trap images.

Various post translational modifications like hyper phosphorylation, O-GlycNAcylation, and acetylation have been attributed to induce the abnormal folding in tau protein. Recent in vitro studies revealed the possible involvement of N–glycosylation of tau protein in the abnormal folding and tau aggregation. Hence in this study, we performed microsecond long all atom molecular dynamics simulation to gain insights into the effects of N-glycosylation on Asn-359residue which forms part of the microtubule binding region. Trajectory analysis of the stimulations coupled with essential dynamics and free energy landscape analysis suggested that tau, in its N-glycosylated form tend to exist in a largely folded conformation having high beta sheet propensity as compared to unmodified tau which exists in a large extended form with very less beta sheet propensity. Residue interaction network analysis of the lowest energy conformations further revealed that Phe378 and Lys353 are the functionally important residues in the peptide which helped in initiating the folding process and Phe378, Lys347&Lys370 helped maintaining the stability of the protein in the folded state.

East Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau is rich in biodiversity in China. Complex geographical and climatic conditions, and rich bird resources made this area an ideal system for studying the spatial distribution mechanism and influencing factors of birds, which were still unknown. Bird community data from 37 sites in this region were collected, including 505 bird species and 164 species of resident passerine bird analyzed. The taxonomic diversity, phylogenetic diversity, functional diversity, and community structure index were calculated. Redundancy analysis (RDA), ordinary least square (OLS), and structural equation model (SEM), were used to explore the relationship between bird diversity index and 12 environmental factors used to describe the habitat conditions of birds. Results indicated that the vascular plant species richness, habitat area, and vertical altitude difference were the three most critical factors affecting bird diversity. The phylogenetic structure of bird community was dispersed in west and clustered in east, and significantly related to latitude, habitat area, and vertical altitude difference. The functional structure was dispersed in all sites, and significantly related to mean annual precipitation and longitude. This suggest that the distribution pattern of bird diversity was caused by the comprehensive action of various habitat factors which were mainly related to food availability and habitat heterogeneity. Considering the protection of birds in this area, it is necessary to continuously promote the construction of nature reserve system proposed by the Chinese government, and pay attention to the protection of urban green space such as campus and urban parks, to maintain the area and integrity of bird habitat, while only a high plant species and area is not enough, improving the habitat heterogeneity is of great significance.

Backgroud: To determine the most suitable effect-site concentration of remifentanil and propofol for keeping proper anesthesia depth and early recover quickly under guidance of patient state index (PSI). Methodsː Elective gynecological laparoscopic surgery patients received concentration of propofol in high concentration (3 ug/mL, N = 25), middle concentration (2.5 ug/mL, N = 24), low concentration (2 ug/mL, N = 28) during maintenance. After finished intubation, propofol was adjusted to the target concentration by grouping, the concentration of remifentanil relied on the reaction of the formerly tested patient using 0.4 ng/mL as a step size began with 3.5ng/mL under PSI monitored. The primary measurements were the concentration of remifentanil, the change of intra-procedural data, and post-operation data including times to handle the change of the depth of anesthesia, blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR), extubation time, duration in PACU, hospital day, VAS score in the first day after sugery. Secondary measurements were density spectral array, intra-operative awareness, postoperative delirium. Results: The group of middle concentration required the minimum time for extubation and staying in PACU, kept steady process of anesthesia (P<0.05), the EC50 of remifentanil to suppression irritation from incision were 2.96 ng/mL (95% CI 2.75 to 3.14 ng/mL) in this group. Besides, low doses of remifentanil were more obvious than high doses in alpha wave of Density spectral array. Conclusions: With PSI guided anesthesia, the effect-site concentration of propofol was 2.5 ug/mL, keep stable anesthesia process and effective early postoperative recovery, meanwhile, EC50 of remifentanil was 2.96 ng/mL.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted seeking and delivery of healthcare. Different Australian jurisdictions implemented different COVID-19 restrictions. We used Australian national pharmacy dispensing data to conduct interrupted time series analyses to examine the incidence and prevalence of opioid dispensing in different jurisdictions. Following nationwide COVID-19 restrictions, the opioid incidence dropped by -0.40 [-0.50, -0.31], -0.33 [-0.46, -0.21] and -0.21 [-0.37, -0.04] /1000 people/week and prevalence dropped by -0.85 [-1.39, -0.31], -0.54 [-1.01, -0.07] and -0.62 [-0.99, -0.25] /1000 people/week in Victoria, New South Wales and other jurisdictions, respectively. Incidence and prevalence increased by 0.29 [0.13, 0.44] and 0.72 [0.11, 1.33] /1000 people/week, respectively in Victoria post-lockdown; no significant changes were observed in other jurisdictions. No significant changes were observed in the initiation of long-term opioid use in any jurisdictions. More stringent restrictions coincided with more pronounced reductions in overall opioid initiation, but initiation of long-term opioid use did not change.

Biodiversity refers to a variety of life forms and ecological complexes in which these components are interacting. The impacts of human-induced factors on biodiversity have become a hot issue and globally recognized. Instantaneously, conservation of biodiversity in National Parks of Ethiopia is faced with huge problems nowadays and this work aims to review on effects of human-induced factors as the threats to biodiversity and associated conservation challenges in selected National Parks of Ethiopia. This review paper was prepared based on a comprehensive review of different articles, journals, newspapers, and reports. The selection criterion was following their relevance to the review objectives. The representative for protected areas; namely, Dhati Wolel, Bale Mountain National parks, and Simien Mountain National were intelligently selected for the review based on biodiversity richness and conservation challenges. In conclusion, the biodiversity threats and ecological degradation have become crucial issues in Ethiopia and the pronounced factors which put biodiversity under significant threat came from the human-induced factors. The consequence is loss of biodiversity and climate change. Hence, this review suggested that all the concerned bodies including stakeholders, managers and civil organizations should cooperate on conservation issues and have a common understanding for confronting the current fragmentary biodiversity and ecological challenges.

Disease ecologists now recognize the limitation behind examining host-parasite interactions in isolation: community members – especially predators – dramatically affect host-parasite dynamics. Although the initial paradigm was that predation should reduce disease in prey populations (“healthy herds hypothesis”), researchers have realized that predators sometimes increase disease in their prey. These “predator-spreaders” are now recognized as critical to disease dynamics, but empirical research on the topic remains fragmented. In a narrow sense, a “predator-spreader” would be defined as a predator that mechanically spreads parasites via feeding. However, predators affect their prey and, subsequently, disease transmission in many other ways such as altering prey population structure, behavior, and physiology. We review the existing evidence for these mechanisms and provide heuristics that incorporate features of the host, predator, parasite, and environment to understand whether or not a predator is likely to be a predator-spreader. We also provide guidance for targeted study of each mechanism and quantifying the effects of predators on parasitism in a way that yields more general insights into the factors that promote predator-spreading. We aim to offer a better understanding of this important and underappreciated interaction and a path towards being able to predict how changes in predation will influence parasite dynamics.

Recent biodiversity declines require action across sectors such as agriculture. The situation is particularly acute for arthropods, a species-rich taxon providing important ecosystem services. To counteract negative consequences of agricultural intensification, creating a less hostile agricultural “matrix” through growing crop mixtures can reduce harm for arthropods without yield losses. While grassland biodiversity experiments showed positive plant biodiversity effects on arthropods, experiments manipulating crop diversity and management intensity to study arthropods are lacking. Here, we experimentally manipulated crop diversity (1-3 species, fallows), crop species (wheat, faba bean, linseed, oilseed rape) and agrochemical input (high vs. low) and studied responses of arthropod biodiversity. Increasing crop diversity increased arthropod diversity and arthropod numbers. Mass-flowering crops attracted more arthropods than legumes or cereals. Integrating intercropping into agricultural systems could lead to a massive increase in flower visits (up to 15 million visits/ha), indicating benefits of intercropping for insect biodiversity and associated ecosystem services.

Tree-killing bark beetles in conifer forests vector symbiont fungi that are thought to help the beetles kill trees. Fungal symbionts emit diverse volatile blends that include bark beetle semiochemicals involved in mating and host localization. In this study, all 12 tested fungal isolates biosynthesized beetle semiochemicals when growing in medium amended with linoleic acid. Semiochemicals produced included the spiroacetals chalcogran, trans-conophthorin and exo-brevicomin but also 2-methyl-3-buten-1-ol, the main aggregation pheromone component of the spruce bark beetle Ips typographus. Accumulating evidence show that the fatty acid composition in conifer bark can facilitate colonization by bark beetles and symbiotic fungi, whereas the fatty acid composition of non-host trees can be detrimental for beetle larvae or fungi. We hypothesize that beetles probe the fatty acid composition of tentative host trees to test their suitability for beetle development and production of semiochemicals by symbiotic fungi.

Herein, we report a case of VAIHS with atypical clinical presentation of perianal abscess, fistula fever and bicytopenia including pathogenic ADA2 mutation suggesting that ADA2 deficiency be considered as a differential diagnosis of enlarging cutaneous abscess with no evidence of wound healing in the setting of leukopenia and neutropenia.

A document by Abdullah Nadeem. Click on the document to view its contents.

Background: Isolated ventricular inversion is characterized by atrioventricular discordance and ventriculoarterial concordance, clinically akin to transposition of the great arteries. 1 In the absence of a significant atrial or ventricular septal defect, profound cyanosis is expected at birth. Case Report: A 5-month-old infant with isolated ventricular inversion presented with mild cyanosis. The left sided tricuspid valve straddled the interventricular septum with a closed interventricular communication, a type of “Double Outlet Left Atrium with three atrioventricular valves”, which provided the necessary ‘left to right’ shunt while severe regurgitation through the straddling segment and a patent ductus arteriosus provided the effective pulmonary blood flow. 2 Result: The infant underwent atrial septectomy, closure of the leaky accessory orifice and a Damus-Kaye-Stansel anastomosis and a bidirectional Glen operation. Conclusion: A unique natural mechanism permitting survival in a child with transposition physiology is described. The Damus procedure preserved tricuspid valve, right ventricle and pulmonary valve function.

While it has been suggested that histone modification can facilitate animal responses to rapidly changing environments, few studies have profiled whole-genome histone modification patterns in introduced species, leaving its role in invasiveness unclear. Here, we screen genome-wide patterns of two important histone modifications, trimethylated Histone H3 Lysine 4 (H3K4me3) and trimethylated Histone H3 Lysine 27 (H3K27me3), in adult thorax muscles of a notorious invasive pest, the Oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae), using Chromatin Immunoprecipitation with high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq). We identified active, repressed and poised promoters, featured by the occupancy of H3K4me3, H3K27me3 and bivalent histone modifications that were respectively annotated with unique genes key to muscle development and structure maintenance. In addition, we found H3K27me3 occupied the entire body of genes, with the average enrichment was almost constant. When comparing to the closely related indigenous Drosophila species, while we found highly conserved histone modifications patterns of distribution and function between the two species, we identified more genes and putative motifs modified by histone modifications that may regulate insect flight capacity and invasiveness compared to D. melanogaster. These findings provide the first evidence of histone modification signature in an invasive species, and will be useful for future studies of epigenetic regulation of invasiveness under global climate change.

The robust synchronization of uncertain master-slave Lur’e systems based on time-delayed feedback control is further investigated. A less conservative synchronization stability criterion and a less conservative robust synchronization stability criterion than some recent published references are proposed via Lyapunov stability theory. Firstly, an augmented delay-dependent Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) is constructed, where some single integral terms are augmented to the integrand component of a single-integral subfunction. This not only increases some coupling information between some system variables, but also increases the coupling information of some necessary variables contained in the inequality lemmas, which can make full use of the inequality lemmas and reduce the conservatism of the synchronization stability criterion. Secondly, to overcome the nonlinear phenomena in the synchronization criterion, the novel negative definite inequality equivalent transformation lemma is used to transform the nonlinear inequalities to the linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) equivalently, which can be easily solved by the MATLAB LMI-Toolbox. Finally, some common numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

An eight order block multistep method (BMM) is put forward for the solution of second order problems of ordinary dierential equations with oscillatory solutions. It uses both polynomial and trigonometric functions as bases in the derivation of the method, to produce three discrete formula which is applied to the second order equation by assembling them into a block method known as Third Derivative Trigonometric Fitted Block Method TDTFBM to generate the approximate solutions. The stability, consistency and convergence properties of the TDTFBM are well discussed. To show the performance, it was demonstrated on some classical problems for its accuracy and efficiency advantages over some known methods in the literature.

The backward Euler method is employed to approximate the invariant measure of a class of stochastic differential equations(SDEs) driven by α-stable processes. The existence and uniqueness of the numerical invariant measure is proved. Then the numerical invariant measure is shown to converge to the underlying invariant measure. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the theoretical results.

Agricultural Policy has been a major driver of Land Use Changes in Portugal, especially the south-eastern Alentejo: the commons division in the early 20 th century, autarkic policies from the fascist regime, and subsidies for forestry, cereal, and cattle production since joining the common market. This study focuses on the Serra de Mértola, an area with poor soils historically subject to land degradation. Data from the Vale Formoso Erosion Centre (1961-present) was used to compute erosion rates under different land uses representative of the study area. Higher values were found in vertical Fallow (964kg/ha/yr), Wheat (90kg/ha/yr) and horizontal Fallow (66kg/ha/yr), with lower values associated with Spontaneous Vegetation (3kg/ha/yr), Quercus (4kg/ha/yr), and Pines (7kg/ha/yr). Analysis of trends in Landsat NDVI values allowed to discriminate between land cover change and natural oscillations in weather and vegetation growth: in dry years NDVI values decrease for winter and spring, maintaining lower values throughout the year, while natural vegetation recovery shows a slow but steady increase until it stabilizes or breaks due to human action. Breaks in NDVI values were correlated with occasional ploughing in pastureland and spontaneous vegetation as well as the different moments in the agricultural year for cereal production. Three tendencies were observed: in Cultivated areas, ploughing provides higher sediment availability in valley floors, resulting in aggradation; Pastureland shows rock fragments on slopes and lower sediment availability, leading to incision on valley floors; Spontaneous Vegetation/Abandoned Land leads to a sharp decrease of sedimentary yield, with incision until its natural growth stabilizes hillslope processes.

In our study, the impact of adoption of improved land management practices on crop productivity and soil erosion control in the Bale Eco-Region, South Eastern Ethiopia. Both purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used to collect primary data. Secondary data were also collected from government offices report, Kebeles Level reports and Oromia region land administration proclamation. The study area was stratified into three strata, based on distinct agro-ecologies, i.e., highland-, mid-altitude-and lowland area and then, one District from each agro-ecology were purposively selected. Two Kebeles from each District were purposively selected based on land management practices. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 165 households. A household survey, group discussions and key informant interviews were carried out. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square and mean comparison were used for data analysis. The results show that inter-cropping, crop rotation, mulching, animal manure, traditional rotational grazing and traditional terracing were the most common indigenous land management practices in the study area. Improved terracing, composting, application of inorganic fertilizers, improved crop seed, agroforestry and cutting and carrying system were observed as improved land management practices. The results show a significant difference in crop productivity and soil erosion control between so-called adopters of improved land management practices and non-adopters.

We herein describe our experience of four patients who had been diagnosed as metastatic breast cancer with BRCA 1/2 pathogenic variants. Prior anthracycline and/or taxane-based therapies needed before administration of PARP inhibitors might be still controversial in terms of patients benefit.

In this paper, we consider the Sturm-Liouvillve problems with the general separated boundary conditions and weight functions. The analytic continuation and the poles of the spectral zeta function of the problems are studied by using the WKB method.

Symptomatic cardiac involvement of malignant lymphoma is rare. Silent invasion of malignant lymphoma makes it difficult to diagnose it in the early phase of clinical course. We describe a case with cardiac involvement of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma presenting various types of arrythmias that were not diagnosed until autopsy.