The authors demonstrate that gold-binding peptides displayed on the outer membrane of Escherichia coli enhance bioelectrochemical charge transfer by binding gold nanoparticles. Microbial fuel cells were run with different gold-binding peptides displayed and with different nanoparticle sizes, and the results were correlated with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of nanoparticle binding. When a gold-binding peptide is displayed and 5 nm gold nanoparticles are present, up to 4× power generation over E. coli not displaying a gold-binding peptide is observed. While an enhanced current is observed using the previously published M6G9, the largest enhancement is observed when a new longer peptide named M9G18 is used.

Infrared absorption spectroscopy is a powerful tool for structural and functional studies of biomolecules. The technique enables direct access to the vibrational fingerprints of molecular bonds in the mid-infrared spectral region (3-20μm). Although intrinsic absorption cross-sections are nearly ten orders of magnitude greater than corresponding Raman cross-sections, they are still small in comparison with those of fluorescent molecules. Sensitivity improvements are therefore required for the method to be applicable to single molecule / molecular layer studies. In this work, we demonstrate the use of lithographically patterned arrays of nanoantennas to enhance the absorption signature of the protein amide-I and II backbone vibrations. Strong absorption signals from monolayer thickness films are obtained. By arranging ensembles of tailored antennas in specific lattices, higher quality factor resonances and increased near-field intensities are possible. These features are leveraged to obtain 104-105 fold signal enhancements and the direct measurement of vibrational spectra of proteins at zepto-mole sensitivity levels.

Objectives: We assessed trends in the incidence, prevalence, and post-diagnosis mortality of parkinsonism in Ontario, Canada over 18 years. We also explored the influence of a range of risk factors for brain health on the trend of incident parkinsonism. Methods: We established an open cohort by linking population-based health administrative databases from 1996 to 2014 in Ontario. The study population comprised residents aged 20–100 years with an incident diagnosis of parkinsonism ascertained using a validated algorithm. We calculated age- and sex-standardized incidence, prevalence, and mortality of parkinsonism, stratified by young onset (20–39 years) and mid/late onset (≥40 years). We assessed trends in incidence using Poisson regression, mortality using negative binomial regression, and prevalence of parkinsonism and pre-existing conditions (e.g., head injury) using the Cochran–Armitage trend test. To better understand trends in the incidence of mid/late-onset parkinsonism, we adjusted for various pre-existing conditions in the Poisson regression model. Results: From 1996 to 2014, we identified 73,129 incident cases of parkinsonism (source population of ∼10.5 million), of whom 56% were male, mean age at diagnosis was 72.6 years, and 99% had mid/late-onset parkinsonism. Over 18 years, the age- and sex-standardized incidence decreased by 13.0% for mid/late-onset parkinsonism but remained unchanged for young-onset parkinsonism. The age- and sex-standardized prevalence increased by 22.8%, while post-diagnosis mortality decreased by 5.5%. Adjustment for pre-existing conditions did not appreciably explain the declining incidence of mid/late-onset parkinsonism. Conclusion: Young-onset and mid/late-onset parkinsonism exhibited differing trends in incidence over 18 years in Ontario. Further research to identify other factors that may appreciably explain trends in incident parkinsonism is warranted.

Gona in the Afar region of Ethiopia has yielded the earliest Oldowan stone tools in the world. Artefacts from the East Gona (EG) 10 site date back 2.6 million years. Analysis of the lithic assemblage from EG 10 reveals the earliest-known evidence for refitting and conjoining stone artefacts. This new information supplements data from other Oldowan sites in East Africa, and provides an important insight into the technological capacities and evolutionary development of hominins during this period.

Plasma levels of very-long-chain SFA (VLCSFA) are associated with the metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, the associations may vary by different biological activities of individual VLCSFA or population characteristics. We aimed to examine the associations of VLCSFA and MetS risk in Chinese adults. Totally, 2008 Chinese population aged 35–59 years were recruited and followed up from 2010 to 2012. Baseline MetS status and plasma fatty acids data were available for 1729 individuals without serious diseases. Among 899 initially metabolically healthy individuals, we identified 212 incident MetS during the follow-up. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate OR and 95 % CI. Cross-sectionally, each VLCSFA was inversely associated with MetS risk; comparing with the lowest quartile, the multivariate-adjusted OR for the highest quartile were 0·18 (95 % CI 0·13, 0·25) for C20 : 0, 0·26 (95 % CI 0·18, 0·35) for C22 : 0, 0·19 (95 % CI 0·13, 0·26) for C24 : 0 and 0·16 (0·11, 0·22) for total VLCSFA (all Pfor trend<0·001). The associations remained significant after further adjusting for C16 : 0, C18 : 0, C18 : 3n-3, C22 : 6n-3, n-6 PUFA and MUFA, respectively. Based on follow-up data, C20 : 0 or C22 : 0 was also inversely associated with incident MetS risk. Among the five individual MetS components, higher levels of VLCSFA were most strongly inversely associated with elevated TAG (≥1·7 mmol/l). Plasma levels of VLCSFA were significantly and inversely associated with MetS risk and individual MetS components, especially TAG. Further studies are warranted to confirm the findings and explore underlying mechanisms.

To investigate the effects of soybean isoflavone (SI) on immunity in infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV)-infected broilers, chicks were fed the same basal diet supplemented with 0 (non-infected control), 0 (infected control), 10, 20 or 40 mg/kg SI for 44 days. At 21 days old, chickens were inoculated with bursal infectious dose causing 50% morbidity of the IBDV BC 6/85 strain by the eye-drop and nasal route (except for non-infected controls). Results showed that, over 1–23 days post-infection (dpi), there was a significant interaction between SI supplementation level and time: high-level SI supplementation increased peripheral T lymphocyte proliferation, percentages of CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, CD4+ to CD8+ ratio, serum concentrations of IgA, IgM and IgG, and IBDV antibody titres. Except for serum IgA and IgM, these variables increased over time with far higher values at 23 dpi than earlier. Compared with non-infected controls, IBDV inoculation decreased peripheral T lymphocyte proliferation at 3 dpi, percentages of CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, and serum IgG, IgM concentration at 23 dpi, and increased IBDV antibody titres at 7, 15 and 23 dpi. Supplemental SI quadratically increased peripheral T lymphocyte proliferation, CD4+ to CD8+ ratio and serum IgA concentration at 3 dpi, percentages of CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes at 3 and 23 dpi, and serum IgM concentration and IBDV antibody titres at 23 dpi. These results indicate that dietary SI improved cellular and humoral immunity of IBDV-infected birds and may enhance resistance of Yellow-feathered broilers to infectious diseases.

Consumption of diets containing medium-chain TAG (MCT) has been shown to confer neuroprotective effects. We aim to identify the global metabolic perturbations associated with consumption of a ketogenic diet (medium-chain TAG diet (MCTD)) in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy. We used ultra-performance liquid chromatography-MS (UPLC-MS) to generate metabolic and lipidomic profiles of fasted canine serum and made comparisons between the MCTD and standardised placebo diet phases. We identified metabolites that differed significantly between diet phases using metabolite fragmentation profiles generated by tandem MS (UPLC–MS/MS). Consumption of the MCTD resulted in significant differences in serum metabolic profiles when compared with the placebo diet, where sixteen altered lipid metabolites were identified. Consumption of the MCTD resulted in reduced abundances of palmitoylcarnitine, octadecenoylcarnitine, stearoylcarnitine and significant changes, both reduced and increased abundances, of phosphatidylcholine (PC) metabolites. There was a significant increase in abundance of the saturated C17 : 0 fatty acyl moieties during the MCTD phase. Lysophosphatidylcholine (17 : 0) (P=0·01) and PC (17:0/20:4) (P=0·03) were both significantly higher in abundance during the MCTD. The data presented in this study highlight global changes in lipid metabolism, and, of particular interest, in the C17 : 0 moieties, as a result of MCT consumption. Elucidating the global metabolic response of MCT consumption will not only improve the administration of current ketogenic diets for neurological disease models but also provides new avenues for research to develop better diet therapies with improved neuroprotective efficacies. Future studies should clarify the involvement and importance of C17 : 0 moieties in endogenous MCT metabolic pathways.

We applied the high temperature pyrolysis-combustion technique to partition the total soil organic carbon (SOC) into labile and inert carbon pools for accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dating and stable carbon isotope (δ13C), SOC, and carbonate carbon (CC) content analyses to examine SOC variability at a Critical Zone Observatory site in Illinois, USA. The AMS 14C dates of labile and inert carbon in the top 1.55 m overlap except in the Bt horizon. Below 1.55 m the labile carbon is younger by 8000–14,800 years. The SOC content decreases from 3.61% to 0.12% and CC content increases from 0% to 19.16% at this depth. Results indicate that SOC production exceeds its loss in the weathering zone causing a continuous turnover of both SOC pools. A small amount of modern SOC infiltrates into deeper sediment below 1.55 m, making the labile carbon pool much younger. Their difference of AMS 14C contents, ΔF14C, reveals 3−5% more modern carbon in the labile SOC pools except in the Bt horizon, further quantifying that <3−5% modern carbon with potential pollutants is translocated into the unweathered sediments. The δ13C reveals the sources for SOC cycling dynamics in both carbon pools at this site.

Introduction: Approximately 50% of patients discharged from the Emergency Department (ED) after syncope have no cause found. Long-term outcomes among syncope patients are not well studied, to guide physicians regarding outpatient testing and follow-up. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review for long-term (one year) outcomes among ED patients with syncope. We aim to use the results of this review to guide us in prospective analysis of one year outcomes with our large database of syncope patients. Methods: We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline and Medline in Process, PubMed, Embase, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) from the inception to June, 2017. We included studies that reported long-term outcomes among adult ED patients (16 years or older) with syncope. We excluded studies on pediatric patients, and studies that included syncope mimickers: pre-syncope, seizure, intoxication, loss of consciousness after head trauma. We also excluded case reports, letters to the editor and review articles. Outcomes included death, syncope recurrence requiring hospitalization, arrhythmias and procedural interventions for arrhythmias. We selected articles based on title and abstract review during phase-1 and conducted full article review during phase-2. Meta-analysis was performed by pooling the outcomes using random effects model (RevMan v.5.3; Cochrane Collaboration). Results: Initial literature search generated 2094 articles after duplicate removal. 50 articles remained after phase-1 (=0.85) and 16 articles were included in the systematic review after phase-2 (=0.86). The 16 included studies enrolled a total of 44,755 patients. Pooled analysis at 1-year follow-up showed the following outcomes: 7% mortality; 14% recurrence of syncope requiring hospitalization; one study reported that 0.6% of patients had a pacemaker inserted; and two studies reported 0.8 11.5% of patients suffered new arrhythmias. Conclusion: An important proportion of ED patients with syncope suffer outcomes at 1-year. Appropriate follow-up is needed to prevent long-term adverse outcomes. Further prospective research to identify patients at risk for long-term important cardiac outcomes and death is needed.

In north-central China, subsistence practices transitioned from hunting and gathering to millet-based agriculture between the early and middle Holocene. To better understand how ancient environmental changes influenced this shift in subsistence strategies and human activities at regional to local levels, we conducted palynological and lithologic analyses on radiocarbon-dated sediment cores from the Luoyang Basin, western Henan Province. Our palynological results suggest that vegetation shifted from broad-leaved deciduous forest (9230–8850 cal yr BP) to steppe-meadow vegetation (8850–7550 cal yr BP), and then to steppe with sparse trees (7550–6920 cal yr BP). Lithologic analyses also indicate that the stabilization of the Luoyang Basin’s floodplain after ~8370 cal yr BP might have attracted people to move into the basin, promoting the emergence of millet-based agriculture during the Peiligang culture period (8500–7000 cal yr BP). Once agricultural practices emerged, the climatic optimum after ~7550 cal yr BP likely facilitated the expansion of the Yangshao culture (7000–5000 cal yr BP) in north-central China. As agriculture intensified, pollen taxa related to human disturbance, such as Urtica, increased in abundance.

Athetis lepigone (Möschler) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a new outbreak pest in China. Consequently, it is unclear whether the emergence and spread of the outbreak of this pest are triggered by rapid in situ population size increases in each outbreak area, or by immigrants from a potential source area in China. In order to explore the outbreak process of this pest through a population genetics approach, we developed ten novel polymorphic expressed sequence tags (EST)-derived microsatellites. These new microsatellites had moderately high levels of polymorphism in the tested population. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 19, with an average of 8.6, and the expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.269 to 0.783. A preliminary population genetic analysis using these new microsatellites revealed a lack of population genetic structure in natural populations of A. lepigone. The estimates of recent migration rate revealed strong gene flow among populations. In conclusion, our study developed the first set of EST-microsatellite markers and shed a new light on the population genetic structure of this pest in China.

In the dynamic analysis of discretized elastic bodies with contacts/impacts, the common formulations to model contact force include the penalty method and the Lagrangian method, which are different in the constraint imposition strategies. Traditionally, the Lagrangian method is thought to be less efficient due to additional multipliers and numerical complexity, however, the viewpoint is challenged in this paper. The goal of this paper is to investigate how numerical efficiency and accuracy using the two different methods are influenced by some non-physical chosen parameters such as stiffness coefficient, time step size and spatial discretization. An experimental sphere-rod impact problem and a multi-point impact problem are solved to evaluate certain numerical intricacies of the two implementations. The results show that in dealing with normal impact problems, the choice of penalty factor and time step size using the penalty method is not an omissible act to obtain accuracy and stability, while there are no such manually-defined parameters using the Lagrangian method. Moreover, there seems to be a clear advantage of the Lagrangian method in which much less mesh elements are needed to achieve the same accuracy compared to those of the penalty method.

Pre-Quaternary terrestrial climate variability is less well understood than that during the Quaternary. The continuous eolian Red Clay sequence underlying the well-known Quaternary loess-paleosol sequence on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) provides an opportunity to study pre-Quaternary terrestrial climate variability in East Asia. Here, we present new mineral magnetic records for a recently found Red Clay succession from Shilou area on the eastern CLP, and demonstrate a marked East Asian climate shift across the Miocene-Pliocene boundary (MPB). Pedogenic fine-grained magnetite populations, ranging from superparamagnetic (SP)/single domain (SD) up to small pseudo-single domain (PSD) sizes (i.e., from <30 nm up to ~1000 nm), dominate the magnetic properties. Importantly, our mineral magnetic results indicate that both pedogenic formation of SP grains and transformation of SP grains to SD and small PSD grains accelerated across the MPB in the Shilou Red Clay, which are indicative of enhanced pedogenesis. We relate this enhanced pedogenesis to increased soil moisture availability on the CLP, associated with stronger Asian Summer Monsoon precipitation during an overall period of global cooling. Our study thus provides new insights into the Miocene-Pliocene climate transition in East Asia.