The wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used for the real-life implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart agriculture, smart buildings, smart cities, and online industrial monitoring ...applications. Generally, traditional WSN nodes are powered by limited energy capacity, non-rechargeable batteries. The WSN lifetime (days) depends upon, duty cycle, type of application deployment, and battery state of charge (SoC) level. We propose an innovative solution to the limited energy availability design problem by utilizing the ambient solar energy harvesting for battery charging of WSN nodes. However, there are many challenges in solar energy harvesting like intermittency of available power, solar energy prediction, thermal issues, solar panel conversion efficiency, and other environmental issues. The objective of this research work is to maximize the WSN network lifetime using solar energy harvesting technique. From our simulation results, it is proved that the sensor network lifetime is increased from 5.75 days to 115.75 days @ 25% duty cycle and higher, ideally up to infinite network lifetime. Furthermore, the network throughput is also increased from 100 K bits/s to 160 K bits/s. in SEH-WSNs.
Human defensins play multiple roles in innate immunity including direct antimicrobial killing and immunomodulatory activity. They have three disulfide bridges which contribute to the stability of ...three anti-parallel β-strands. The exact role of disulfide bridges and canonical β-structure in the antimicrobial action is not yet fully understood. In this study, we have explored the antimicrobial activity of human β-defensin 4 (HBD4) analogs that differ in the number and connectivity of disulfide bridges. The cysteine framework was similar to the disulfide bridges present in μ-conotoxins, an unrelated class of peptide toxins. All the analogs possessed enhanced antimicrobial potency as compared to native HBD4. Among the analogs, the single disulfide bridged peptide showed maximum potency. However, there were no marked differences in the secondary structure of the analogs. Subtle variations were observed in the localization and membrane interaction of the analogs with bacteria and Candida albicans, suggesting a role for disulfide bridges in modulating their antimicrobial action. All analogs accumulated in the cytosol where they can bind to anionic molecules such as nucleic acids which would affect several cellular processes leading to cell death. Our study strongly suggests that native disulfide bridges or the canonical β-strands in defensins have not evolved for maximal activity but they play important roles in determining their antimicrobial potency.
Metasploit has been a crucial security tool for many years. However, there are only a few modules that Metasploit has made available to the public for pentesting web applications. In this book, ...you'll explore another aspect of the framework - web applications - which is not commonly used. You'll also discover how Metasploit, when used with its inbuilt GUI, simplifies web application penetration testing. The book starts by focusing on the Metasploit setup, along with covering the life cycle of the penetration testing process. Then, you will explore Metasploit terminology and the web GUI, which is available in the Metasploit Community Edition. Next, the book will take you through pentesting popular content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla, which will also include studying the latest CVEs and understanding the root cause of vulnerability in detail. Later, you'll gain insights into the vulnerability assessment and exploitation of technological platforms such as JBoss, Jenkins, and Tomcat.
We report on the observation of sign reversal of vortex-Nernst effect in epitaxial NbN/Fe bilayers deposited on MgO (001) substrates. Strong coupling between vortex magnetisation and ferromagnetic ...magnetisation at the NbN/Fe bilayer interface is presented. In NbN/Fe bilayer thin films an apparent sign reversal of vortex-Nernst signal under a temperature gradient with magnetic field and temperature is observed when the thickness of Fe is increased up to 5 nm. This reversal of the vortex-Nernst effect is associated with the enhancement of the spin Seebeck effects (SSE) near T
due to coherence peak effect (CPE) and strong coupling of vortex magnetisation and ferromagnetic magnetisation at the interface of the NbN/Fe bilayer. The observed large SSE via inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) is due to the CPE below and close to T
, highlighting the high spin to charge conversion efficiency of NbN in this region. This work may contribute to the development of superconducting spintronic devices by engineering the coupling of the superconductor/ferromagnet interface.
Thaumatin-like proteins (TLPs) are related to pathogenesis-related-5 (PR-5) family and involved in stress response. Herein, a total of 93
genes were identified in the genome of
Further, we identified ...26, 27, 39, and 37
genes in the
,
,
, and
genomes for comparative characterization, respectively. They could be grouped into small and long TLPs with conserved thaumatin signature motif. Tightly clustered genes exhibited conserved gene and protein structure. The physicochemical analyses suggested significant differences between small and long TLPs. Evolutionary analyses suggested the role of duplication events and purifying selection in the expansion of the TLP gene family. Expression analyses revealed the possible roles of
in plant development and abiotic and fungal stress response. Recombinant expression of
in
provided significant tolerance against cold, heat, osmotic, and salt stresses. The results depicted the importance of TLPs in cereal crops that would be highly useful in future crop improvement programs.
During host cell invasion, microsporidian spores translocate their entire cytoplasmic content through a thin, hollow superstructure known as the polar tube. To achieve this, the polar tube ...transitions from a compact spring-like state inside the environmental spore to a long needle-like tube capable of long-range sporoplasm delivery. The unique mechanical properties of the building blocks of the polar tube allow for an explosive transition from compact to extended state and support the rapid cargo translocation process. The molecular and structural factors enabling this ultrafast process and the structural changes during cargo delivery are unknown. Here, we employ light microscopy and in situ cryo-electron tomography to visualize multiple ultrastructural states of the Vairimorpha necatrix polar tube, allowing us to evaluate the kinetics of its germination and characterize the underlying morphological transitions. We describe a cargo-filled state with a unique ordered arrangement of microsporidian ribosomes, which cluster along the thin tube wall, and an empty post-translocation state with a reduced diameter but a thicker wall. Together with a proteomic analysis of endogenously affinity-purified polar tubes, our work provides comprehensive data on the infection apparatus of microsporidia and uncovers new aspects of ribosome regulation and transport.
With the current rate of hacking, it is very important to pentest your environment in order to ensure advanced-level security. This book is packed with practical recipes that will quickly get you ...started with Kali Linux (version 2018.4/2019) as per your requirements and help you move on to core functionalities.
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is now routinely used to interrogate large sets of genes in a diagnostic setting. Regions of high sequence homology continue to be a major challenge for short-read ...technologies and can lead to false-positive and false-negative diagnostic errors. At the scale of whole-exome sequencing (WES), laboratories may be limited in their knowledge of genes and regions that pose technical hurdles due to high homology. We have created an exome-wide resource that catalogs highly homologous regions that is tailored toward diagnostic applications.
This resource was developed using a mappability-based approach tailored to current Sanger and NGS protocols.
Gene-level and exon-level lists delineate regions that are difficult or impossible to analyze via standard NGS. These regions are ranked by degree of affectedness, annotated for medical relevance, and classified by the type of homology (within-gene, different functional gene, known pseudogene, uncharacterized noncoding region). Additionally, we provide a list of exons that cannot be analyzed by short-amplicon Sanger sequencing.
This resource can help guide clinical test design, supplemental assay implementation, and results interpretation in the context of high homology.
Genet Med18 12, 1282–1289.
Abstract In response to chronic stress, oestrogen receptor (ER)α acts as an anxiogenic agent as opposed to ERβ which predominantly acts as an anxiolytic agent. These properties of ER play an ...important role in mediating anxiety- and depression-like behaviour and physiological responses. However, the precise underlying mechanism remains unclear. In particular, not much is known about the expression of ERα and ERβ in the stress-sensitive brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala. Using a rodent model of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS), we report that two weeks of CUMS in young male mice (10 ± 2 weeks) induces noteworthy changes in the ratio of ERα/ERβ in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. While we observed a significant ( P < 0.05) increase in ERα mRNA and protein expression levels, the expression of ERβ in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala was significantly reduced. This increase in ERα expression with concomitant decrease in ERβ expression was associated with increased anxiety- and depression-like behaviour as observed in elevated plus maze test, open field test, forced swim test and sucrose preference test. In addition to these behavioural changes, we report the decrease of dendritic complexity with concomitant increase in spine density in the medial prefrontal cortex, dorsohippocampal CA3 region and basolateral complex of amygdala (BLA). Taken together, these results suggest that the CUMS-induced increase in the ratio of ERα/ERβ causes dendritic remodeling, which in turn might be responsible for increase in anxiety- and depression-like behaviour in young male mice.
Cpf1, an endonuclease of the class 2 CRISPR family, fills the gaps that were previously faced in the world of genome engineering tools, which include the TALEN, ZFN, and CRISPR/Cas9. Other ...simultaneously discovered nucleases were not able to carry out re-engineering at the same region due to the loss of a target site after first-time engineering. Cpf1 acts as a dual nuclease, functioning as an endoribonuclease to process crRNA and endodeoxyribonuclease to cleave target sequences and generate double-stranded breaks. Additionally, Cpf1 allows for multiplexed genome editing, as a single crRNA array transcript can target multiple loci in the genome. The CRISPR/Cpf1 system enables gene deletion, insertion, base editing, and locus tagging in monocot as well as in dicot plants with fewer off-target effects. This tool has been efficiently demonstrated into tobacco, rice, soybean, wheat, etc. This review covers the development and applications of Cpf1 mediated genome editing technology in plants.
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