| 1. |
- Beal, Jacob, et al.
(författare)
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Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density
- 2020
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 3:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data.
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| 2. |
- Zhao, Yanyan, et al.
(författare)
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A 30,000-km journey by Apus apus pekinensis tracks arid lands between northern China and south-western Africa
- 2022
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Ingår i: Movement Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2051-3933. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: As a widely distributed and aerial migratory bird, the Common Swift (Apus apus) flies over a wide geographic range in Eurasia and Africa during migration. Although some studies have revealed the migration routes and phenology of European populations, A. a. apus (from hereon the nominate apus), the route used by its East Asian counterpart A. a. pekinensis (from hereon pekinensis) remained a mystery. Methods: Using light level geolocators, we studied the migration of adult pekinensis breeding in Beijing from 2014 to 2018, and analysed full annual tracks obtained from 25 individuals. In addition, we used the mean monthly precipitation to assess the seasonal variations in humidity for the distribution ranges of the nominate apus and pekinensis. This environmental variable is considered to be critically relevant to their migratory phenology and food resource abundance. Results: Our results show that the swifts perform a round-trip journey of ca 30,000 km each year, representing a detour of 26% in autumn and 15% in spring compared to the shortest route between the breeding site in Beijing and wintering areas in semi-arid south-western Africa. Compared to the nominate apus, pekinensis experiences drier conditions for longer periods of time. Remarkably, individuals from our study population tracked arid habitat along the entire migration corridor leading from a breeding site in Beijing to at least central Africa. In Africa, they explored more arid habitats during non-breeding than the nominate apus. Conclusions: The migration route followed by pekinensis breeding in Beijing might suggest an adaptation to semi-arid habitat and dry climatic zones during non-breeding periods, and provides a piece of correlative evidence indicating the historical range expansion of the subspecies. This study highlights that the Common Swift may prove invaluable as a model species for studies of migration route formation and population divergence.
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| 3. |
- Kristan, Matej, et al.
(författare)
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The Ninth Visual Object Tracking VOT2021 Challenge Results
- 2021
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Ingår i: 2021 IEEE/CVF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER VISION WORKSHOPS (ICCVW 2021). - : IEEE COMPUTER SOC. - 9781665401913 ; , s. 2711-2738
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Visual Object Tracking challenge VOT2021 is the ninth annual tracker benchmarking activity organized by the VOT initiative. Results of 71 trackers are presented; many are state-of-the-art trackers published at major computer vision conferences or in journals in recent years. The VOT2021 challenge was composed of four sub-challenges focusing on different tracking domains: (i) VOT-ST2021 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB, (ii) VOT-RT2021 challenge focused on "real-time" short-term tracking in RGB, (iii) VOT-LT2021 focused on long-term tracking, namely coping with target disappearance and reappearance and (iv) VOT-RGBD2021 challenge focused on long-term tracking in RGB and depth imagery. The VOT-ST2021 dataset was refreshed, while VOT-RGBD2021 introduces a training dataset and sequestered dataset for winner identification. The source code for most of the trackers, the datasets, the evaluation kit and the results along with the source code for most trackers are publicly available at the challenge website(1).
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| 4. |
- Sun, Qiang, et al.
(författare)
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Overuse of antibiotics for the common cold - attitudes and behaviors among doctors in rural areas of Shandong Province, China
- 2015
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Ingår i: BMC Pharmacology & Toxicology. - : BioMed Central. - 2050-6511. ; 16:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Irrational antibiotic use is common in rural areas of China, despite the growing recognition of the importance of appropriate prescribing to contain antibiotic resistance. The aim of this study was to analyze doctors attitudes and prescribing practices related to antibiotics in rural areas of Shandong province, focusing on patients with the common cold. Methods: A survey was conducted with doctors working at thirty health facilities (village clinics, township health centers and county general hospitals) in three counties within Shandong province. Questions were included on knowledge and attitudes towards antibiotic prescribing. Separately, a random selection of prescriptions for patients with the common cold was collected from the healthcare institutions at which the doctors worked, to investigate actual prescribing behaviors. Results: A total of 188 doctors completed the survey. Most doctors (83%, 149/180) had attended training on antibiotic use since the beginning of their medical practice as a doctor, irrespective of the academic level of their undergraduate training. Of those that had training, most had attended it within the past three years (97%, 112/116). Very few doctors (2%, 3/187) said they would give antibiotics to a patient with symptoms of a common cold, and the majority (87%, 156/179) would refuse to prescribe an antibiotic even if patients were insistent on getting them. Doctors who had attended training were less likely to give antibiotics in this circumstance (29% vs. 14%, p less than 0.001). A diagnosis of common cold was the only diagnosis reported on 1590 out of 8400 prescriptions. Over half (55%, 869/1590) of them included an antibiotic. Prescriptions from village clinics were more likely to contain an antibiotic than those from other healthcare institutions (71% vs. 44% [township] vs. 47% [ county], p less than 0.001). Conclusions: Most doctors have recently attended training on antibiotic use and report they would not prescribe antibiotics for patients with a common cold, even when placed under pressure by patients. However, more than half of the prescriptions from these healthcare institutions for patients with the common cold included an antibiotic. Exploring and addressing gaps between knowledge and practice is critical to improving antibiotic use in rural China.
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| 5. |
- Sun, Qiang, et al.
(författare)
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Varying High Levels of Faecal Carriage of Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Producing Enterobacteriaceae in Rural Villages in Shandong, China: Implications for Global Health
- 2014
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 9:11, s. e113121-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antibiotic resistance is considered a major threat to global health and is affected by many factors, of which antibiotic use is probably one of the more important. Other factors include hygiene, crowding and travel. The rapid resistance spread in Gram-negative bacteria, in particular extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E), is a global challenge, leading to increased mortality, morbidity and health systems costs worldwide. Knowledge about resistance in commensal flora is limited, including in China. Our aim was to establish the faecal carriage rates of ESBL-E and find its association with known and suspected risk factors in rural residents of all ages in three socio-economically different counties in the Shandong Province, China. Faecal samples and risk-factor information (questionnaire) were collected in 2012. ESBL-E carriage was screened using ChromID ESBL agar. Risk factors were analysed using standard statistical methods. Data from 1000 individuals from three counties and in total 18 villages showed a high and varying level of ESBL-E carriage. Overall, 42% were ESBL-E carriers. At county level the carriage rates were 49%, 45% and 31%, respectively, and when comparing individual villages (n = 18) the rate varied from 22% to 64%. The high level of ESBL-E carriage among rural residents in China is an indication of an exploding global challenge in the years to come as resistance spreads among bacteria and travels around the world with the movement of people and freight. A high carriage rate of ESBL-E increases the risk of infection with multi-resistant bacteria, and thus the need for usage of last resort antibiotics, such as carbapenems and colistin, in the treatment of common infections.
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| 6. |
- Zabarovsky, Eugene R, et al.
(författare)
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Restriction site tagged (RST) microarrays : a novel technique to study the species composition of complex microbial systems
- 2003
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press. - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 31:16, s. e95-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have developed a new type of microarray, restriction site tagged (RST), for example NotI, microarrays. In this approach only sequences surrounding specific restriction sites (i.e. NotI linking clones) were used for generating microarrays. DNA was labeled using a new procedure, NotI representation, where only sequences surrounding NotI sites were labeled. Due to these modifications, the sensitivity of RST microarrays increases several hundred-fold compared to that of ordinary genomic microarrays. In a pilot experiment we have produced NotI microarrays from Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and have shown that even closely related Escherichia coli strains can be easily discriminated using this technique. For example, two E.coli strains, K12 and R2, differ by less than 0.1% in their 16S rRNA sequences and thus the 16S rRNA sequence would not easily discriminate between these strains. However, these strains showed distinctly different hybridization patterns with NotI microarrays. The same technique can be adapted to other restriction enzymes as well. This type of microarray opens the possibility not only for studies of the normal flora of the gut but also for any problem where quantitative and qualitative analysis of microbial (or large viral) genomes is needed.
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| 7. |
- Zhao, Yan, et al.
(författare)
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Preparation of low cost glass-ceramics from molten blast furnace slag
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ceramics International. - : Elsevier BV. - 0272-8842 .- 1873-3956. ; 38:3, s. 2495-2500
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the current paper, a low-cost technology was used to prepare glass ceramics through directly heat-treating with molten glass containing blast furnace slag and silica sand. By making use of the sensible heat of the molten slag, the energy cost was much lower than that in conventional method. The utilized ratio of slag was about 90% and the optimum heat treatment schedule for glass ceramics was confirmed by an L-9(3(4)) orthogonal test. The effect of CaF2 on the microstructure of the glass ceramics was studied by DSC, XRD and SEM, the bending strength of the glass ceramics was tested by three points bending tester. The results showed that, after the optimum heat treatment schedule of nucleation at 780 degrees C for 0.5 h and crystallization at 960 degrees C for 1.5 h, the crystalline phases were akermanite and diopside, the bending strength of the glass-ceramics was about 45.8 MPa. If CaF2 was added, a remarkable reduction of crystal size was observed, the crystallization of diopside and Ca2SiO2F2 was promoted while that of akermanite was inhibited, the bending strength of glass ceramics samples could be greatly improved to 120 MPa.
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