Real-time strategy (RTS) games simulate battlefield leadership and tactical and strategic operations. Most overemphasize the number of actions per minute (APM), which encourages players to click ...rapidly and constantly rather than apply deliberate and finely tuned strategies or tactics. New RTS games featuring resource dispersion game mechanics aimed at reducing APM demand and promoting strategic planning are being released. We created three versions of a single RTS game, recruited players, recorded their game control data, and asked them to complete a simple after-game questionnaire. Data were used to analyze tactical and strategic applications. Player actions were observed and player opinions analyzed in an attempt to identify an optimal game structure as measured by strategic and tactical play.
A solution of 2.5% salt with 15% crystal sugar was used for developing naturally fermented cucumbers. Fermented food sensory characteristics, color difference, and microbial analyses have not been ...yet investigated. To clarify this puzzle, changes in naturally fermented cucumber characteristics through the aging period were analyzed in this study. The results show that sensory evaluation and color difference in the fermented product improved significantly through the optimal fermentation process. Both total plate count and lactic acid bacteria count significantly and time-dependently increased. Importantly, Leuconostoc mensenteroides were identified as the dominant lactic acid bacteria. Leuconostoc mensenterosides significantly increased from 33.64% to 80.72% through the 8-days optimal aging process. Detrimental Enterobacter unclassified bacteria markedly decreased from 35.45% to 3.34%. Based on the overall changes in sensory evaluation, color difference and microbiota, naturally lacto-fermented cucumbers were developed and may be further exploited in the food industry.
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•A 2.5% salt with 15% sugar solution was used for naturally fermented cucumbers.•Sensory, color difference and microbiota in the aging products were analyzed.•Leuconostoc mensenteroides was identified as dominant lactic acid bacteria.•A naturally lacto-fermented cucumbers were developed in this study.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Group A streptococcus (GAS) is a versatile pathogen that causes a wide spectrum of diseases in humans. Invading host cells is a known strategy for GAS to avoid antibiotic killing and immune ...recognition. However, the underlying mechanisms of GAS resistance to intracellular killing need to be explored. Endothelial HMEC-1 cells were infected with GAS, methicillin-resistant
(MRSA) and
Typhimurium under nicotinamide (NAM)-supplemented conditions. The intracellular NAD
level and cell viability were respectively measured by NAD
quantification kit and protease-based cytotoxicity assay. Moreover, the intracellular bacteria were analyzed by colony-forming assay, transmission electron microscopy, and confocal microscopy. We found that supplementation with exogenous nicotinamide during infection significantly inhibited the growth of intracellular GAS in endothelial cells. Moreover, the NAD
content and NAD
/NADH ratio of GAS-infected endothelial cells were dramatically increased, whereas the cell cytotoxicity was decreased by exogenous nicotinamide treatment. After knockdown of the autophagy-related ATG9A, the intracellular bacterial load was increased in nicotinamide-treated endothelial cells. The results of Western blot and transmission electron microscopy also revealed that cells treated with nicotinamide can increase autophagy-associated LC3 conversion and double-membrane formation during GAS infection. Confocal microscopy images further showed that more GAS-containing vacuoles were colocalized with lysosome under nicotinamide-supplemented conditions than without nicotinamide treatment. In contrast to GAS, supplementation with exogenous nicotinamide did not effectively inhibit the growth of MRSA or
Typhimurium in endothelial cells. These results indicate that intracellular NAD
homeostasis is crucial for controlling intracellular GAS infection in endothelial cells. In addition, nicotinamide may be a potential new therapeutic agent to overcome persistent infections of GAS.
To evaluate postextubation swallowing dysfunction (PSD) 21 days after endotracheal extubation and to examine whether PSD is time-limited and whether age matters.For this prospective cohort study, we ...evaluated 151 adult critical care patients (≥20 years) who were intubated for at least 48 hours and had no pre-existing neuromuscular disease or swallowing dysfunction. Participants were assessed for time (days) to pass bedside swallow evaluations (swallow 50 mL of water without difficulty) and to resume total oral intake. Outcomes were compared between younger (20-64 years) and older participants (≥65 years).PSD, defined as inability to swallow 50 mL of water within 48 hours after extubation, affected 92 participants (61.7% of our sample). At 21 days postextubation, 17 participants (15.5%) still failed to resume total oral intake and were feeding-tube dependent. We found that older participants had higher PSD rates at 7, 14, and 21 days postextubation, and took significantly longer to pass the bedside swallow evaluations (5.0 vs 3.0 days; P = 0.006) and to resume total oral intake (5.0 vs 3.0 days; P = 0.003) than their younger counterparts. Older participants also had significantly higher rates of subsequent feeding-tube dependence than younger patients (24.1 vs 5.8%; P = 0.008).Excluding patients with pre-existing neuromuscular dysfunction, PSD is common and prolonged. Age matters in the time needed to recover. Swallowing and oral intake should be monitored and interventions made, if needed, in the first 7 to 14 days postextubation, particularly for older patients.
Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is the method most commonly used to assess patients with suspected coronary artery disease for the presence of myocardial ischemia and risk of subsequent adverse ...cardiac events. Studies are limited on the incidence of major adverse cardiac event (MACE) in patients with normal MPI results.
The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence and risk factors of MACE in patients with normal or near-normal MPI results.
In this single-center retrospective chart review study, patients who had received MPI tests at a nuclear medicine department of a medical center in 2017 were consecutively enrolled. All of the participants in this study were patients with normal or near-normal MPI results, and were followed for two years to assess the incidence of MACE (death, hospitalized for percutaneous coronary intervention; CABG, heart failure and stroke). Participants with or without MACE were compared to determine whether demographic, comorbidity, and MPI data were significant risk facto
The ubiquitous and emerging physiology function of endogenous nitric oxide in vascular, myocardial, immune, and neuronal systems prompts chemists to develop a prodrug for the controlled delivery of ...·NO in vivo and for the translational biomedical application. Inspired by the discovery of natural Fe(NO)
2
motif, herein, we develop the synthetic dinitrosyl iron complexes (DNICs) Fe
2
(μ-SR)
2
(NO)
4
(
1
) as a universal platform for the O
2
-triggered release of ·NO, for the regulation of ·NO-release kinetics (half-life = 0.6–27.4 h), and for the activation of physiological function of ·NO. Using
C. elegans
as a model organism, the ·NO-delivery DNIC
1
regulates IIS signaling pathway, AMPK signaling pathway, and mitochondrial function pathway to extend the lifespan and to delay the aging process based on the lifespan analysis, SA-βgal activity assay, and next-generation RNA sequencing analysis. This study unveils the anti-aging effect of ·NO and develops DNICs as a chemical biology probe for the continued discovery of unprecedented NO physiology.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Group A
(GAS) is a human pathogen causing a wide spectrum of diseases, from mild pharyngitis to life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis. GAS has been shown to evade host immune killing by invading ...host cells. However, how GAS resists intracellular killing by endothelial cells is still unclear. In this study, we found that strains NZ131 and A20 have higher activities of NADase and intracellular multiplication than strain SF370 in human endothelial cells (HMEC-1). Moreover,
mutants of NZ131 (SW957 and SW976) were generated to demonstrate that NADase activity is required for the intracellular growth of GAS in endothelial cells. We also found that intracellular levels of NAD
and the NAD
/NADH ratio of NZ131-infected HMEC-1 cells were both lower than in cells infected by the
mutant. Although both NZ131 and its
mutant were trapped by LC3-positive vacuoles, only
mutant vacuoles were highly co-localized with acidified lysosomes. On the other hand, intracellular multiplication of the
mutant was increased by bafilomycin A1 treatment. These results indicate that NADase causes intracellular NAD
imbalance and impairs acidification of autophagosomes to escape autophagocytic killing and enhance multiplication of GAS in endothelial cells.
We have developed a new viewing angle controllable liquid crystal panel we called it lens type switching cell, which can effectively control the light through a special electrode design and rubbing ...conditions. In the structure, the design of the switching cell combined with the based panel and the backlight is called Advanced Hyper‐Viewing Angle Controllable (AH‐VAC) LCD. This panel In addition to having a good anti‐peep effect, the sharing mode can also have a good light viewing angle characteristic according to the voltage setting.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The abundance of multimedia data on the Web presents both challenges (how to annotate, search, and mine) and opportunities (crawling the Web to create large structured multimedia data bases which can ...be used to do inference effectively). Because of the huge data volume, considering all semantic concepts as on the same (flat) level is not viable. In this paper, we introduce a unified STRUCTURED representation called multimedia information networks (MINets), which incorporates ontology and cross-media links, covering both content and context knowledge. Ontology and cross-media structures are constructed and expanded by automatically constructing MINets from web-scale data by state-of-the-art information extraction and knowledge-based population techniques. The resultant MINet will contain a wide range of linkages, including logical, statistical, and semantic relations among informative concept nodes, which connects proliferative ontology as well as cross-media web-scale resources together. The raw data collected in construction phase often contain much noisy, incomplete, or even conflicting information which could be detrimental to information extraction and utilization. Then, the redundant link structure can be utilized to distill MINets and improve quality of information (QoI). Moreover, advanced inference theory and system can be built upon the linked MINets, and then high-level ontological knowledge can be inferred and integrated in a logically harmonious network structure in MINets which is consistent with human cognition. Even more, as information channels, the ontology and cross-media links in MINets connect informative knowledge resources together, which makes it possible to increase the portability of information between different resources to increase information utilization levels.
To evaluate the prognostic potential of expression of hormone receptors in malignant mammary gland tumors of dogs. Design-Cohort study.
89 female dogs with malignant mammary gland tumors and 24 ...female dogs with benign mammary gland tumors.
Female dogs with malignant (n = 89 dogs) and benign (24) mammary gland tumors were evaluated to determine the prognostic value of the expression of estrogen receptor (ER)A or the progesterone receptor (PR), as determined by use of immunohistochemical methods.
In this study, 68 (60.2%) and 88 (77.9%) of the 113 dogs with mammary gland tumors had expression of ERA and PR, respectively. Expression of ERA and PR was detected proportionately more frequently in benign tumors (23/24 95.8% and 24/24 100%, respectively) than in malignant tumors (45/89 50.6% and 64/89 71.9%). Percentage of tumors with positive results for ERA and PR was significantly higher in tumors < 5 cm in diameter; as clinical stage I, II, or III; and without metastasis to lymph nodes or distant metastasis. However, only PR expression in tumor cells was significantly associated with 1-year survival after surgical removal of the tumor. Moreover, dogs with malignant tumors expressing ERA and PR had a significantly higher survival rate, compared with the rate for dogs with malignant tumors expressing ERA but not PR.
These findings strongly suggested that expression of PR could be used as a prognostic factor for survival, especially in female dogs with malignant mammary gland tumors with ERA expression.
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