Psychrotrophic violacein-producing bacteria isolated from Lake Winnipeg,Canada

Violet and purple bacterial pigmentations are uncommon when considering strict aerobes. Here we report discovery of two novel isolates, P102 and P117 from the freshwater Lake Winnipeg, each with violet to deep purple colony colouration. The relationship between pigment production and growth was investigated under different conditions, including a variety of carbon sources, pH, and temperatures. The violet compounds were purified using polar organic solvents, and then structurally characterized via mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance to be violacein and deoxyviolacein. Strain P117 produced higher concentrations of the darker pigment deoxyviolacein, which resulted in a deeper hue of violet than in cultures of P102. Strain P102, synthesized violacein maximally in liquid rich organic medium at pH 8 and 20 °C, and had 99.3% sequence similarity to the 16S rDNA from Janthinobacterium lividum. Strain P117, related to Massilia violaceinigra sharing 99.2% 16S rDNA sequence similarity, also produced violacein at similar optimal conditions, but developed higher concentrations of pigment at 15 °C. Culture-based methods found that violacein producers composed 0.001% or 0.023% CFU of environmental heterotrophic populations using BG-11 and potato-based media, respectively. Culture-independent high-throughput ribosomal 16S V4 sequencing of environmental DNA was used to detect Gram-negative species known for their production of violacein. Of all bacterial and archaeal sequences present during the fall in littoral waters and sediment of Lake Winnipeg, 5.5% and 6.3%, respectively, belonged to species that have similar pigment, demonstrating the scarcity of violacein producers in this aquatic freshwater system.     

Evidence of successful river spawning by lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in the Lower Niagara River,Lake Ontario

Restoration of a wild-produced lake trout Salvelinus namaycush population in Lake Ontario has not been successful despite the adult population often meeting or exceeding restoration targets. Lack of high-quality spawning habitat in Lake Ontario is suggested as one impediment to recruitment of wild lake trout, although the quantity and location of spawning habitat is poorly understood. If high-quality spawning habitat is limited in Lake Ontario, lake trout may be using uncommon spawning locations such as rivers. Anecdotal angler accounts point to the Niagara River as a lake trout spawning location. To better understand the potential of the Niagara River as a spawning location, egg and juvenile fish collections were conducted 12–14 river kilometers from the mouth of the Niagara River from 2010 to 2012; and mature female lake trout with surgically implanted acoustic tags were monitored from 2015 to 2019. Genetic analyses confirmed 60% of collected eggs and 93% of collected post-hatch juvenile fish in the Niagara River were lake trout. Tagged female lake trout returned to the Niagara River over consecutive years during the spawning season. The short duration of lake trout presence in the river (mean = 56 days/year) suggests female lake trout use the Niagara River primarily for spawning. Diversity in spawning locations may provide lake trout population’s resilience against environmental variability through a portfolio effect. Improved identification of riverine spawning locations, including their overall contribution to wild recruitment, may be a useful tool for managers to restore a wild-produced population of lake trout in Lake Ontario.     

Monte Carlo despeckling of transrectal ultrasound images of the prostate

In this paper, a novel stochastic method is developed for despeckling transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images of the prostate. By incorporating the circular probe acquisition particularities and speckle noise statistics of TRUS images of the prostate into a likelihood-weighted Monte Carlo estimation scheme, the proposed method can better remove speckle noise while preserving image structures and details that are relevant for image screening, allowing for a better delineation of the lesion contour. Our in silico and in vivo experimental results are promising, which was confirmed by a clinical evaluation of the in vivo test cases by experienced clinicians, and indicate that our method potentially can perform better than other previously proposed methods.     

Majority gates vs. general weighted threshold gates

In this paper we study small depth circuits that contain threshold gates (with or without weights) and parity gates. All circuits we consider are of polynomial size. We prove several results which complete the work on characterizing possible inclusions between many classes defined by small depth circuits. These results are the following:

Predicting fully plastic mode II crack growth from an asymmetric defect

Asymmetrically cracked specimens fail with considerably less ductility than symmetrically cracked ones, due to the crack progressing along a shear band into pre-damaged material. A formulation for the accumulation of damage ahead of an asymmetric crack is presented, based on strain increments following a power law relation. These results are integrated both numerically and approximately.The crack growth per unit displacement increases approximately as the logarithm of the total crack advance per inclusion spacing , and varies inversely as the critical fracture strain c. This provides a basis for predicting large-scale, fully plastic fracture from asymmetric weld defects, using small-scale laboratory specimens.

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Résumé Les éprouvettes fissurées de manière asymétrique se rompent avec beaucoup moins de ductilité que celles qui sont fissurées de manières symétrique, en raison du fait que la fissure se développe suivant une bande de cisaillement dans un matériau préendommagé. On Présente une formulation de l'accumulation du dommage en avant d'une fissure asymétrique, en se basant sur des gradients de déformations répartis selon une loi quadratique. L'interprétation des résultats est effectuée par voie numérique et par approximation.On constate que le croissance d'une fissure par unité de déplacement est sensiblement proportionnelle au logarithme de l'avancement total de la fissure rapporté à l'espacement entre deux inclusions , et en raison inverse de la déformation critique à la rupture c. Ceci fournt une base pour prédire une rupture à plus grande échelle et en conditions tout à fait plastiques, qui résulteront de défauts de soudage asymétriques, et ce en utilisant des éprouvettes réduites de laboratoire.

     

Ultrasonic crack characterization via a constrained inversion algorithm

The Kirchhoff approximation is used to show that the time domain impulse response of an isolated flat crack can be given a simple geometrical interpretation in terms of the derivative of a projected length function. For an elliptical crack, this derivative can be obtained explicitly to yield the two edge-diffracted waves which originate from the flashpoints of the crack. An explicit coordinate invariant expression is obtained from this elliptical crack solution which relates the time difference, t, between the arrival of these edge-diffracted waves and the crack size and orientation. Previously, we have proposed that this expression, together with t measurements in different scattering directions, could be used in a regression analysis as the basis for performing a constrained inversion of crack scattering data (i.e., where we attempt to obtain the best equivalent flat elliptical crack that fits the scattering measurements). Here we will demonstrate some results of applying the proposed algorithm using noisy synthetic data. The sensitivity of the results to both, number of measurements and transducer orientation, will be discussed.     

Textures in3He-A: Magnetic deformation in a narrow slab

A variational technique is used to analyze the deformed texture of superfluid³He-A in a narrow slab subject to a perpendicular magnetic field. Specific predictions are made for the anisotropy parameters and , averaged across the width.     

Dysregulated CD38 Expression on Peripheral Blood Immune Cell Subsets in SLE

Given its uniformly high expression on plasma cells, CD38 has been considered as a therapeutic target in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Herein, we investigate the distribution of CD38 expression by peripheral blood leukocyte lineages to evaluate the potential therapeutic effect of CD38-targeting antibodies on these immune cell subsets and to delineate the use of CD38 as a biomarker in SLE. We analyzed the expression of CD38 on peripheral blood leukocyte subsets by flow and mass cytometry in two different cohorts, comprising a total of 56 SLE patients. The CD38 expression levels were subsequently correlated across immune cell lineages and subsets, and with clinical and serologic disease parameters of SLE. Compared to healthy controls (HC), CD38 expression levels in SLE were significantly increased on circulating plasmacytoid dendritic cells, CD14⁺⁺CD16⁺ monocytes, CD56⁺ CD16^dim natural killer cells, marginal zone-like IgD⁺CD27⁺ B cells, and on CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ memory T cells. Correlation analyses revealed coordinated CD38 expression between individual innate and memory T cell subsets in SLE but not HC. However, CD38 expression levels were heterogeneous across patients, and no correlation was found between CD38 expression on immune cell subsets and the disease activity index SLEDAI-2K or established serologic and immunological markers of disease activity. In conclusion, we identified widespread changes in CD38 expression on SLE immune cells that highly correlated over different leukocyte subsets within individual patients, but was heterogenous within the population of SLE patients, regardless of disease severity or clinical manifestations. As anti-CD38 treatment is being investigated in SLE, our results may have important implications for the personalized targeting of pathogenic leukocytes by anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies.