A primary goal of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was to provide a reference collection of 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences collected from sites across the human body that would allow ...microbiologists to better associate changes in the microbiome with changes in health. The HMP Consortium has reported the structure and function of the human microbiome in 300 healthy adults at 18 body sites from a single time point. Using additional data collected over the course of 12-18 months, we used Dirichlet multinomial mixture models to partition the data into community types for each body site and made three important observations. First, there were strong associations between whether individuals had been breastfed as an infant, their gender, and their level of education with their community types at several body sites. Second, although the specific taxonomic compositions of the oral and gut microbiomes were different, the community types observed at these sites were predictive of each other. Finally, over the course of the sampling period, the community types from sites within the oral cavity were the least stable, whereas those in the vagina and gut were the most stable. Our results demonstrate that even with the considerable intra- and interpersonal variation in the human microbiome, this variation can be partitioned into community types that are predictive of each other and are probably the result of life-history characteristics. Understanding the diversity of community types and the mechanisms that result in an individual having a particular type or changing types, will allow us to use their community types to assess disease risk and to personalize therapies.
•Variety of structure types and waste intensities are considered to estimate C&D waste.•Quantification and composition of C&D waste in Shanghai are modelled and analyzed.•Proposed results can be ...applied to facilitate formulating precise recycling management.
One methodology is proposed to estimate the quantification and composition of building-related construction and demolition (C&D) waste in a fast developing region like Shanghai, PR China. The varieties of structure types and building waste intensities due to the requirement of progressive building design and structure codes in different decades are considered in this regional C&D waste estimation study. It is concluded that approximately 13.71million tons of C&D waste was generated in 2012 in Shanghai, of which more than 80% of this C&D waste was concrete, bricks and blocks. Analysis from this study can be applied to facilitate C&D waste governors and researchers the duty of formulating precise policies and specifications. As a matter of fact, at least a half of the enormous amount of C&D waste could be recycled if implementing proper recycling technologies and measures. The appropriate managements would be economically and environmentally beneficial to Shanghai where the per capita per year output of C&D waste has been as high as 842kg in 2010.
A new and robust constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detector based on truncated statistics (TSs) is proposed for ship detection in single-look intensity and multilook intensity synthetic aperture radar ...data. The approach is aimed at high-target-density situations such as busy shipping lines and crowded harbors, where the background statistics are estimated from potentially contaminated sea clutter samples. The CFAR detector uses truncation to exclude possible statistically interfering outliers and TSs to model the remaining background samples. The derived truncated statistic CFAR (TS-CFAR) algorithm does not require prior knowledge of the interfering targets. The TS-CFAR detector provides accurate background clutter modeling, a stable false alarm regulation property, and improved detection performance in high-target-density situations.
Rutin is one of the most common dietary polyphenols found in vegetables, fruits, and other plants. It is metabolized by the mammalian gut microbiota and absorbed from the intestines, and becomes ...bioavailable in the form of conjugated metabolites. Rutin exhibits a plethora of bioactive properties, making it an extremely promising phytochemical. Numerous studies demonstrate that rutin can act as a chemotherapeutic and chemopreventive agent, and its anticancer effects can be mediated through the suppression of cell proliferation, the induction of apoptosis or autophagy, and the hindering of angiogenesis and metastasis. Rutin has been found to modulate multiple molecular targets involved in carcinogenesis, such as cell cycle mediators, cellular kinases, inflammatory cytokines, transcription factors, drug transporters, and reactive oxygen species. This review summarizes the natural sources of rutin, its bioavailability, and in particular its potential use as an anticancer agent, with highlighting its anticancer mechanisms as well as molecular targets. Additionally, this review updates the anticancer potential of its analogs, nanoformulations, and metabolites, and discusses relevant safety issues. Overall, rutin is a promising natural dietary compound with promising anticancer potential and can be widely used in functional foods, dietary supplements, and pharmaceuticals for the prevention and management of cancer.
The consumption of plant-based food is important for health promotion, especially concerning the prevention and management of chronic diseases. Flavonoids are the main bioactive compounds in citrus ...fruits, with multiple beneficial effects, especially antidiabetic effects. We systematically review the potential antidiabetic action and molecular mechanisms of citrus flavonoids based on in vitro and in vivo studies. A search of the PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection databases for articles published since 2010 was carried out using the keywords citrus, flavonoid, and diabetes. All articles identified were analyzed, and data were extracted using a standardized form. The search identified 38 articles, which reported that 19 citrus flavonoids, including 8-prenylnaringenin, cosmosiin, didymin, diosmin, hesperetin, hesperidin, isosiennsetin, naringenin, naringin, neohesperidin, nobiletin, poncirin, quercetin, rhoifolin, rutin, sineesytin, sudachitin, tangeretin, and xanthohumol, have antidiabetic potential. These flavonoids regulated biomarkers of glycemic control, lipid profiles, renal function, hepatic enzymes, and antioxidant enzymes, and modulated signaling pathways related to glucose uptake and insulin sensitivity that are involved in the pathogenesis of diabetes and its related complications. Citrus flavonoids, therefore, are promising antidiabetic candidates, while their antidiabetic effects remain to be verified in forthcoming human studies.
Forming multiple micorgrids with distributed generators offers a resilient solution to restore critical loads from natural disasters in distribution systems. However, more dummy binary and continuous ...variables are needed with the increase of the number of microgrids, which will therefore increase the complexity of this model. To address this issue, this letter presents a new model to reformulate the micorgrid formulation problem in resilient distribution networks. Compared with the traditional model, the number of both binary and continuous variables is greatly reduced, such that the computational performance is significantly improved. Numerical results on IEEE test systems verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.
Bacteria are known to be associated endophytically with plants. Research on endophytic bacteria has identified their importance in food safety, agricultural production and phytoremediation. However, ...the diversity of endophytic bacterial communities and the forces that shape their compositions in non-cultivated plants are largely uncharacterized. In this study, we explored the diversity, community structure, and dynamics of endophytic bacteria in different plant species in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve of northern Oklahoma, USA. High throughput sequencing of amplified segments of bacterial rDNA from 81 samples collected at four sampling times from five plant species at four locations identified 335 distinct OTUs at 97% sequence similarity, representing 16 phyla. Proteobacteria was the dominant phylum in the communities, followed by the phyla Bacteriodetes and Actinobacteria. Bacteria from four classes of Proteobacteria were detected with Alphaproteobacteria as the dominant class. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that host plant species and collecting date had significant influences on the compositions of the leaf endophytic bacterial communities. The proportion of Alphaproteobacteria was much higher in the communities from Asclepias viridis than from other plant species and differed from month to month. The most dominant bacterial groups identified in LDA Effect Size analysis showed host-specific patterns, indicating mutual selection between host plants and endophytic bacteria and that leaf endophytic bacterial compositions were dynamic, varying with the host plant's growing season in three distinct patterns. In summary, next generation sequencing has revealed variations in the taxonomic compositions of leaf endophytic bacterial communities dependent primarily on the nature of the plant host species.
The synergy of photothermal energy and optical forces generated by tightly focused laser beams can be used to transform the shape of gold nanoparticles. Here, the combination of these two effects is ...demonstrated to be an effective way of elongating gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), massively tuning their plasmonic properties. The photothermal effect of the laser increases the temperature of Au NPs above the melting point, and optical forces deform the molten Au NPs. As a result, the shape of Au NPs transforms from nanospheres into nanorods or dimers, depending on the power and time of irradiation as well as the surface energy of the substrate. This process is reversible by using high laser power to transform nanorods back to nanospheres due to capillary dewetting. Such light-induced transformations of nanostructures not only provide a facile way to tune plasmon resonances but also shed light on how the synergistic effect of photothermal energy and optical forces works on plasmonic nanoparticles.
A novel multi-stage stochastic programming model is proposed for the expansion coplanning of gas and power networks considering the uncertainties in net load demand. Meanwhile, the nonanticipativity ...constraints are taken into account to guarantee the decisions should only depend on the information of realized uncertainties up to the present stage. Compared with the traditional two-stage stochastic programming model, the proposed multi-stage stochastic programming model yields sequential investment decisions with the uncertainties revealed gradually over time, such that the investment decisions are capable of keeping future options open and can shift from "never be changed" decisions to a flexible "wait and see" decisions. The test on three systems shows the effectiveness of the proposed multi-stage stochastic programming model.
With the emerging concept of sharing-economy, shared electric vehicles (EVs) are playing a more and more important role in future mobility-on-demand traffic system. This article considers joint ...charging scheduling, order dispatching, and vehicle rebalancing for large-scale shared EV fleet operator. To maximize the welfare of fleet operator, we model the joint decision making as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) and apply deep reinforcement learning (DRL) combined with binary linear programming (BLP) to develop a near-optimal solution. The neural network is used to evaluate the state value of EVs at different times, locations, and states of charge. Based on the state value, dynamic electricity prices and order information, the online scheduling is modeled as a BLP problem where the decision variables representing whether an EV will 1) take an order, 2) rebalance to a position, or 3) charge. We also propose a constrained rebalancing method to improve the exploration efficiency of training. Moreover, we provide a tabular method with proved convergence as a fallback option to demonstrate the near-optimal characteristics of the proposed approach. Simulation experiments with real-world data from Haikou City verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
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