Our understanding of how the gut microbiome interacts with its human host has been restrained by limited access to longitudinal datasets to examine stability and dynamics, and by having only a few ...isolates to test mechanistic hypotheses. Here, we present the Broad Institute-OpenBiome Microbiome Library (BIO-ML), a comprehensive collection of 7,758 gut bacterial isolates paired with 3,632 genome sequences and longitudinal multi-omics data. We show that microbial species maintain stable population sizes within and across humans and that commonly used 'omics' survey methods are more reliable when using averages over multiple days of sampling. Variation of gut metabolites within people over time is associated with amino acid levels, and differences across people are associated with differences in bile acids. Finally, we show that genomic diversification can be used to infer eco-evolutionary dynamics and in vivo selection pressures for strains within individuals. The BIO-ML is a unique resource designed to enable hypothesis-driven microbiome research.
Abstract Background Ethical climate in the workplace has been highlighted to have an important impact on workers’ mental health; the evaluation of workplace ethics and its impact on workers’ health ...should be considered an occupational health issue. Aims The present study aims to investigate ethical climate as perceived by workers, and its correlation with mental health outcomes, in particular, symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. Methods A cross-sectional study was performed by administering an online survey, investigating socio-demographic variables, workplace ethics (through the Italian short version of the Corporate Ethical Virtues questionnaire) and mental health outcomes (using the short version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale). Descriptive analyses, analyses of variance and regression models were performed; P-values were considered significant for values ≤0.05. Results The sample included 176 workers; the mean age of participants was 46.22 years and 44% were males. The most represented job sector was health care (37%), and 42% of participants had college-level education. Ethical climate was significantly correlated with all mental health outcomes investigated in the study: anxiety (P ≤ 0.001), depression (P ≤ 0.05) and stress (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusions Results from this study highlighted a significant correlation between workplace ethical climate and depression, anxiety and stress. This study underlines the importance of evaluating and improving ethical climate to prevent the onset of psychological distress in workers. Furthermore, results from this study should be a starting point for future research investigating the role of ethics and mental health in employees’ turnover intention and job satisfaction.
Corundum, α-Al$_2$O$_3$, is the thermodynamically stable phase of coarsely crystalline aluminum oxide, but syntheses of nanocrystalline Al$_2$O$_3$ usually result in γ-Al$_2$O$_3$. Adsorption ...microcalorimetry, thermogravimetric analyses, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller adsorption experiments, coupled with recently reported high-temperature solution calorimetry data, prove that γ-Al$_2$O$_3$ has a lower surface energy than α-Al$_2$O$_3$ and becomes energetically stable at surface areas greater than 125 square meters per gram and thermodynamically stable at even smaller surface areas (for example, 75 square meters per gram at 800 kelvin). The results are in agreement with recent molecular dynamics simulations and provide conclusive experimental evidence that differences in surface energy can favor the formation of a particular polymorph.
The CMS collaboration has developed a fast Monte Carlo simulation of the CMS detector with event production rates ∼100 times faster than the GEANT4-based simulation, with nonetheless comparable ...accuracy for most of the physics objects typically considered in the analyses. We discuss basic technical principles of the CMS Fast Simulation and their implementation in the different components of the detector: the silicon tracker, the electromagnetic calorimeter, the hadronic calorimeter, the muon system, the Level 1 and the High Level Trigger. A few comparisons of the Fast Simulation results both with the GEANT4-based Full Simulation and with the LHC data are shown.
Atomic layer deposition is widely acknowledged as a powerful technique for the deposition of high quality layers for several applications including photovoltaics (PV). The capability of ALD to ...generate dense, conformal, virtually pinhole-free layers becomes attractive also for the emerging organo-metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which have garnered the interest of the PV community through their remarkable efficiency gains, now over 20%, in just a few years of research. Until now, the application of ALD layers in PSCs has almost exclusively been restricted to the stages of device fabrication prior to perovskite deposition. Researchers have mainly focused on fabricating efficient electron and hole transport layers (TiO 2 , SnO 2 , ZnO, NiO) and ultra-thin Al 2 O 3 or TiO 2 passivation layers for several device configurations. The first section of this contribution reviews the current state-of-the-art ALD for perovskite solar cells. Then, we explore other potential opportunities, such as the fabrication of doped metal oxide selective contacts and transparent electrodes, also for use in tandem solar cell architectures, as well as barrier layers for encapsulation. Finally, we present our own experimental investigation of the challenges involved in depositing directly on perovskite absorbers in view of replacing organic electron and hole transport layers with ALD metal oxides (MOs). Therefore, the effects of temperature, oxidizing agents and metal precursors on perovskite are studied. A number of insights are gained which can lead to the development of ad hoc ALD processes that are compatible with the underlying perovskite, in this case, methylammonium lead iodide, MAPbI 3 . The phase purity and surface chemistry of the perovskite were used as metrics to quantify the feasibility of depositing selected MOs which can be adopted as selective contacts and passivation layers.
Highlights • Transcutaneous spinal direct currents (tsDCS) modulate the temporal processing of the nociceptive stimuli at spinal level. • tsDCS could inhibit the transitory frequency-dependent ...facilitation of the spinal wide dynamic range neurons activity at the basis of temporal summation of pain. • As future perspective, modulation of temporal processing of nociceptive stimuli by tsDCS could be helpful in pain treatment as well as in preventing pain becoming chronic.
When prebiotics and other fermentation substrates are delivered to animals as feed supplements, the typical goal is to improve weight gain and feed conversion. In this work, we examined pasture flock ...chicken cecal contents using next generation sequencing (NGS) to identify and understand the composition of the microbiome when prebiotics and fermentation substrates were supplemented. We generated 16S rRNA sequencing data for 120 separate cecal samples from groups of chickens receiving one of 3 prebiotics or fiber feed additives. The data indicated that respective feed additives enrich for specific bacterial community members and modulate the diversity of the microbiome. We applied synthetic learning in microbial ecology (SLiME) analysis to interpret 16S rRNA microbial community data and identify specific bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTU) that are predictive of the particular feed additives used in these experiments. The results suggest that feed can influence microbiome composition in a predictable way, and thus diet may have indirect effects on weight gain and feed conversion through the microbiome.
An experimental investigation of the flow inside a rectangular cylinder with air injected continuously along the wall is performed. This kind of flow is a two-dimensional approximation of what ...happens inside a solid rocket motor, where the lateral grain burns expelling exhaust gas or in processes with air filtration or devices to attain uniform flows. We propose a brief derivation of some analytical solutions and a comparison between these solutions and experimental data, which are obtained using the particle image velocimetry technique, to provide a global reconstruction of the flowfield. The flow, which enters orthogonal to the injecting wall, turns suddenly its direction being pushed towards the exit of the chamber. Under the incompressible and inviscid flow hypothesis, two analytical solutions are reported and compared. The first one, known as Hart–McClure solution, is irrotational and the injection velocity is non-perpendicular to the injecting wall. The other one, due to Taylor and Culick, has non-zero vorticity and constant, vertical injection velocity. The comparison with laminar solutions is useful to assess whether transition to turbulence is reached and how the disturbance thrown in by the porous injection influences and modifies those solutions.
Autonomic dysfunction in kidney diseases Lai, S; Bagordo, D; Perrotta, A M ...
European review for medical and pharmacological sciences,
08/2020, Letnik:
24, Številka:
16
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Kidney diseases are associated with many cardiovascular risk factors, such as anaemia, inflammation and chronic volume overload. Changes in the sympathovagal balance are common findings in patients ...with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In particular, sympathetic hyperactivity is linked with an increase in resting heart rate leading to myocardial hypertrophy and fibrosis. The latter increases the risk of sudden cardiac death from fatal arrythmias and therefore assessment of both sympathetic and parasympathetic tones could be clinically relevant in ESRD patients. Heart rate variability and other indices are currently used to evaluate the functionality of the autonomic nervous system. Some of these have emerged as potential diagnostic tools that can support clinical decision-making processes and therapeutic strategies in patients with renal disease, including those who are on dialysis replacement therapy. In this review, we summarize the impact and the relationships between sympathovagal disturbances and kidney diseases, replacement therapies and transplantation.
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