Novel Real-Time PCR Method To Detect Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Raw Milk Cheese and Raw Ground Meat

Raw milk, raw milk cheeses, and raw ground meat have been implicated in Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreaks. Developing methods to detect these bacteria in raw milk and meat products is a major challenge for food safety. The aim of our study was to develop a real-time PCR assay to detect E. coli O157:H7 in raw milk cheeses and raw ground meat. Well-known primers targeting a mutation at position +93 of the uidA gene in E. coli O157:H7 were chosen, and a specific TaqMan-minor groove binder probe was designed. This probe targets another mutation, at position +191 of the uidA gene in E. coli O157:H7. The first step in the study was to evaluate the specificity of this probe with 156 different O157:H7/NM strains and 48 non-O157:H7/NM strains of E. coli. The sensitivity of the method was evaluated by pre- and postinoculation of cheeses and meat enrichments with different E. coli O157:H7 strains. All the E. coli O157:H7 isolates tested were positive, and none of the other bacteria were detected. Our results indicate that this method is sensitive enough to detect 10(2) E. coli O157:H7 isolates per ml of cheese or meat enrichment broth (24 h at 41.5° C) and is more sensitive than the International Organization for Standardization reference method. We can conclude that this new real-time PCR protocol is a useful tool for rapid, specific, and sensitive detection of E. coli O157:H7 in raw milk and raw ground meat products.     

The Omnipresence of DYRK1A in Human Diseases

The increasing population will challenge healthcare, particularly because the worldwide population has never been older. Therapeutic solutions to age-related disease will be increasingly critical. Kinases are key regulators of human health and represent promising therapeutic targets for novel drug candidates. The dual-specificity tyrosine-regulated kinase (DYRKs) family is of particular interest and, among them, DYRK1A has been implicated ubiquitously in varied human diseases. Herein, we focus on the characteristics of DYRK1A, its regulation and functional role in different human diseases, which leads us to an overview of future research on this protein of promising therapeutic potential.     

Seeker—Autonomous Long‐range Rover Navigation for Remote Exploration

Under the umbrella of the European Space Agency (ESA) StarTiger program, a rapid prototyping study called Seeker was initiated. A range of partners from space and nonspace sectors were brought together to develop a prototype Mars rover system capable of autonomously exploring several kilometers of highly representative Mars terrain over a three‐day period. This paper reports on our approach and the final field trials that took place in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Long‐range navigation and the associated remote rover field trials are a new departure for ESA, and this activity therefore represents a novel initiative in this area. The primary focus was to determine if current computer vision and artificial intelligence based software could enable such a capability on Mars, given the current limit of around 200 m per Martian day. The paper does not seek to introduce new theoretical techniques or compare various approaches, but it offers a unique perspective on their behavior in a highly representative environment. The final system autonomously navigated 5.05 km in highly representative terrain during one day. This work is part of a wider effort to achieve a step change in autonomous capability for future Mars/lunar exploration rover platforms.     

Some approaches to computer analysis of dialogue in theater: Buero Vallejo''s En la ardiente oscuridad

The dramatic text features dialogue as communication among characters for the benefit of the reader or audience. Computer analysis of selected parameters in the clearly defined rhetorical unit that is dialogue can test hypotheses, confirm intuitive criticism, and help discover structural, thematic, and discursive patterns that even close reading may not detect. This study describes approaches to the dialogue of a well known contemporary Spanish play that are neither time-consuming nor labor-intensive. Ready-made software can produce data and graphs for dialogal structuring, repeat rates of semantic fields, distribution and density of theme words and imagery, interaction of characters, and idiolects.     

CTRL: Extension of CTL with regular expressions and fairness operators to verify genetic regulatory networks

Model checking has proven to be a useful analysis technique not only for concurrent systems, but also for genetic regulatory networks (Grns). Applications of model checking in systems biology have revealed that temporal logics should be able to capture both branching-time and fairness properties (needed for specifying multistability and oscillation properties, respectively). At the same time, they should have a user-friendly syntax easy to employ by non-experts. In this paper, we define Computation Tree Regular Logic (Ctrl), an extension of Ctl with regular expressions and fairness operators that attempts to match these criteria. Ctrl subsumes both Ctl and Ltl, and has a reduced set of temporal operators indexed by regular expressions. We also develop a translation of Ctrl into Hennessy-Milner Logic with Recursion (HmlR), an equational variant of the modal μ-calculus. This has allowed us to obtain an on-the-fly model checker with diagnostic for Ctrl by directly reusing the verification technology available in the Cadp toolbox. We illustrate the application of the Ctrl model checker by analyzing the Grn controlling the carbon starvation response of Escherichia coli.     

Synthesis of a neodymium-quinolate complex for near-infrared electroluminescence applications

A structurally pure, near-infrared emissive Nd-(5,7-dichloro-8-hydroxyquinoline)₄ tetrakis complex has been synthesized. When incorporated as a dopant in the blue emissive, hole conducting polymer poly(N-vinylcarbazole), PVK, sensitized neodymium ion emission was observed following photo-excitation of the polymer host. OLED devices were fabricated by spin-casting layers of the doped polymer onto glass/indium tin oxide (ITO)/3,4-polyethylene-dioxythiophene-polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT) substrates. An external quantum efficiency of 1 × 10^− 3% and a near-infrared irradiance of 2.0 nW/mm² at 25 mA/mm² and 20 V was achieved using glass/ITO/PEDOT/ PVK:Nd-(5,7-dichloro-8-hydroxyquinoline)₄/Ca/Al devices.