Bacteria belonging to the genus
are the first inhabitants of the oral cavity, which can be acquired right after birth and thus play an important role in the assembly of the oral microbiota. In this ...article, we discuss the different oral environments inhabited by streptococci and the species that occupy each niche. Special attention is given to the taxonomy of
, because this genus is now divided into eight distinct groups, and oral species are found in six of them. Oral streptococci produce an arsenal of adhesive molecules that allow them to efficiently colonize different tissues in the mouth. Also, they have a remarkable ability to metabolize carbohydrates via fermentation, thereby generating acids as byproducts. Excessive acidification of the oral environment by aciduric species such as
is directly associated with the development of dental caries. However, less acid-tolerant species such as
and
produce large amounts of alkali, displaying an important role in the acid-base physiology of the oral cavity. Another important characteristic of certain oral streptococci is their ability to generate hydrogen peroxide that can inhibit the growth of
. Thus, oral streptococci can also be beneficial to the host by producing molecules that are inhibitory to pathogenic species. Lastly, commensal and pathogenic streptococci residing in the oral cavity can eventually gain access to the bloodstream and cause systemic infections such as infective endocarditis.
ABSTRACT Accurately determining the mass of galaxy clusters is fundamental for many studies of cosmology and galaxy evolution. We collect and rescale the cluster masses of 1191 clusters of estimated ...by X-ray or Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements and use them to calibrate the optical mass proxy. The total r-band luminosity (in units of ) of these clusters is obtained by using spectroscopic and photometric data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that the correlation between the cluster mass and total r-band luminosity significantly evolves with redshift. After correcting for the evolution, we define a new cluster richness as the optical mass proxy. By using this newly defined richness and the recently released SDSS DR12 spectroscopic data, we update the WHL12 cluster catalog and identify 25,419 new rich clusters at high redshift. In the SDSS spectroscopic survey region, about 89% of galaxy clusters have spectroscopic redshifts. The mass can be estimated with a scatter of 0.17 dex for the clusters in the updated catalog.
Dynamical state of galaxy clusters is closely related to their observational properties in X-ray, optical and radio wavelengths. We develop a method to diagnose the substructure and dynamical state ...of galaxy clusters by using photometric data of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). To trace mass distribution, the brightness distribution of member galaxies is smoothed by using a Gaussian kernel with a weight of their optical luminosities. After deriving the asymmetry, the ridge flatness and the normalized deviation of the smoothed optical map, we define a relaxation parameter, Γ, to quantify dynamical state of clusters. This method is applied to a test sample of 98 clusters of 0.05 < z 0.42 collected from literature with known dynamical states and can recognize dynamical state for relaxed (Γ ≥ 0) and unrelaxed (Γ < 0) clusters with a success rate of 94 per cent. We then calculate relaxation parameters of 2092 rich clusters previously identified from the SDSS, of which 28 per cent clusters are dynamically relaxed with Γ ≥ 0. We find that the dominance and absolute magnitude of the brightest cluster galaxies closely correlate with dynamical states of clusters. The emission power of radio haloes is quantitatively related to cluster dynamical state, beside the known dependence on the X-ray luminosity.
The Biology of Streptococcus mutans Lemos, J A; Palmer, S R; Zeng, L ...
Microbiology spectrum,
01/2019, Letnik:
7, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
As a major etiological agent of human dental caries,
resides primarily in biofilms that form on the tooth surfaces, also known as dental plaque. In addition to caries,
is responsible for cases of ...infective endocarditis with a subset of strains being indirectly implicated with the onset of additional extraoral pathologies. During the past 4 decades, functional studies of
have focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms the organism employs to form robust biofilms on tooth surfaces, to rapidly metabolize a wide variety of carbohydrates obtained from the host diet, and to survive numerous (and frequent) environmental challenges encountered in oral biofilms. In these areas of research,
has served as a model organism for ground-breaking new discoveries that have, at times, challenged long-standing dogmas based on bacterial paradigms such as
and
. In addition to sections dedicated to carbohydrate metabolism, biofilm formation, and stress responses, this article discusses newer developments in
biology research, namely, how
interspecies and cross-kingdom interactions dictate the development and pathogenic potential of oral biofilms and how next-generation sequencing technologies have led to a much better understanding of the physiology and diversity of
as a species.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration radio transients
of unknown origin. Two possible mechanisms that could generate extremely coherent emission from FRBs invoke neutron star ...magnetospheres
or relativistic shocks far from the central energy source
. Detailed polarization observations may help us to understand the emission mechanism. However, the available FRB polarization data have been perplexing, because they show a host of polarimetric properties, including either a constant polarization angle during each burst for some repeaters
or variable polarization angles in some other apparently one-off events
. Here we report observations of 15 bursts from FRB 180301 and find various polarization angle swings in seven of them. The diversity of the polarization angle features of these bursts is consistent with a magnetospheric origin of the radio emission, and disfavours the radiation models invoking relativistic shocks.
Abstract Based on the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys released data and available spectroscopic redshifts, we identify 1.58 million clusters of galaxies by searching for the overdensity of the stellar ...mass distribution of galaxies within redshift slices around preselected massive galaxies, with 877,806 clusters being found for the first time. The identified clusters have an equivalent mass of M 500 ≥ 0.47 × 10 14 M ⊙ with an uncertainty of 0.2 dex. The redshift distribution of clusters extends to z ∼ 1.5, and 338,841 clusters have spectroscopic redshifts. Our cluster sample includes most of the rich optical clusters in previous catalogs, more than 95% of the massive Sunyaev–Zeldovich clusters, and 90% of the ROSAT and eROSITA X-ray clusters. From the light distributions of the member galaxies, we derive the dynamical state parameters for 27,685 rich clusters and find no significant evolution of the dynamical state with redshift. We find that the stellar mass of the brightest cluster galaxies grows by a factor of 2 since z = 1.
Abstract
Discovery of pulsars is one of the main goals for large radio telescopes. The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), that incorporates an L-band 19-beam receiver with ...a system temperature of about 20 K, is the most sensitive radio telescope utilized for discovering pulsars. We designed the
snapshot
observation mode for a FAST key science project, the Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot (GPPS) survey, in which every four nearby pointings can observe
a cover
of a sky patch of 0.1575 square degrees through beam-switching of the L-band 19-beam receiver. The integration time for each pointing is 300 seconds so that the GPPS observations for a cover can be made in 21 minutes. The goal of the GPPS survey is to discover pulsars within the Galactic latitude of ± 10° from the Galactic plane, and the highest priority is given to the inner Galaxy within ± 5°. Up to now, the GPPS survey has discovered 201 pulsars, including currently the faintest pulsars which cannot be detected by other telescopes, pulsars with extremely high dispersion measures (DMs) which challenge the currently widely used models for the Galactic electron density distribution, pulsars coincident with supernova remnants, 40 millisecond pulsars, 16 binary pulsars, some nulling and mode-changing pulsars and rotating radio transients (RRATs). The follow-up observations for confirmation of new pulsars have polarization-signals recorded for polarization profiles of the pulsars. Re-detection of previously known pulsars in the survey data also leads to significant improvements in parameters for 64 pulsars. The GPPS survey discoveries are published and will be updated at
http://zmtt.bao.ac.cn/GPPS/
.
Abstract
We identify 47 600 clusters of galaxies from photometric data of Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and SuperCOSMOS, among which 26 125 clusters ...are recognized for the first time and mostly in the sky outside the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) area. About 90 per cent of massive clusters of M500 > 3 × 1014 M⊙ in the redshift range of 0.025 < z < 0.3 have been detected from such survey data, and the detection rate drops down to 50 per cent for clusters with a mass of M500 ∼ 1 × 1014 M⊙. Monte Carlo simulations show that the false detection rate for the whole cluster sample is less than 5 per cent. By cross-matching with ROSAT and XMM–Newton sources, we get 779 new X-ray cluster candidates which have X-ray counterparts within a projected offset of 0.2 Mpc.
Atmospheric reactive nitrogen (N
r
) has been a cause of serious environmental pollution in China. Historically, China used too little N
r
in its agriculture to feed its population. However, with the ...rapid increase in N fertilizer use for food production and fossil fuel consumption for energy supply over the last four decades, increasing gaseous N
r
species (e.g. NH
3
and NO
x
) have been emitted to the atmosphere and then deposited as wet and dry deposition, with adverse impacts on air, water and soil quality as well as plant biodiversity and human health. This paper reviews the issues associated with this in a holistic way. The emissions, deposition, impacts, actions and regulations for the mitigation of atmospheric N
r
are discussed systematically. Both NH
3
and NO
x
make major contributions to environmental pollution but especially to the formation of secondary fine particulate matter (PM
2.5
), which impacts human health and light scattering (haze). In addition, atmospheric deposition of NH
3
and NO
x
causes adverse impacts on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems due to acidification and eutrophication. Regulations and practices introduced by China that meet the urgent need to reduce N
r
emissions are explained and resulting effects on emissions are discussed. Recommendations for improving future N management for achieving ‘win-win’ outcomes for Chinese agricultural production and food supply, and human and environmental health, are described.
This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Air quality, past present and future’.
The clinical management of meningioma is guided by tumor grade and biological behavior. Currently, the assessment of tumor grade follows surgical resection and histopathologic review. Reliable ...techniques for pre-operative determination of tumor grade may enhance clinical decision-making.
A total of 175 meningioma patients (103 low-grade and 72 high-grade) with pre-operative contrast-enhanced T1-MRI were included. Fifteen radiomic (quantitative) and 10 semantic (qualitative) features were applied to quantify the imaging phenotype. Area under the curve (AUC) and odd ratios (OR) were computed with multiple-hypothesis correction. Random-forest classifiers were developed and validated on an independent dataset (n = 44).
Twelve radiographic features (eight radiomic and four semantic) were significantly associated with meningioma grade. High-grade tumors exhibited necrosis/hemorrhage (ORsem = 6.6, AUCrad = 0.62-0.68), intratumoral heterogeneity (ORsem = 7.9, AUCrad = 0.65), non-spherical shape (AUCrad = 0.61), and larger volumes (AUCrad = 0.69) compared to low-grade tumors. Radiomic and sematic classifiers could significantly predict meningioma grade (AUCsem = 0.76 and AUCrad = 0.78). Furthermore, combining them increased the classification power (AUCradio = 0.86). Clinical variables alone did not effectively predict tumor grade (AUCclin = 0.65) or show complementary value with imaging data (AUCcomb = 0.84).
We found a strong association between imaging features of meningioma and histopathologic grade, with ready application to clinical management. Combining qualitative and quantitative radiographic features significantly improved classification power.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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