A Combined Immunofluorescence and Fluorescent Viability Cocktail Staining Procedure for Rapid Microscopic Detection and Enumeration of Live Legionella pneumophila

Journal of Fluorescence - This report describes a combined immunofluorescence and fluorescence viability stain applied as one staining solution for rapid detection of live Legionella...     

Carbohydrate-based nanostructured catalysts: applications in organic transformations

The requirement of green and sustainable materials to prepare heterogeneous catalysts has intensified for practical reasons over the past few decades. Carbohydrates are possibly the most plentiful and renewable organic materials in nature with inimitable physiochemical properties, plausible low-cost and large-scale production, and sustainability features could be exploited in the generation of nanostructured heterogeneous catalysts. This review article outlines the organic transformations catalyzed by diverse carbohydrate-based nanostructured catalysts in greener and environmentally friendly processes. Selected examples are highlighted for a variety of organic reactions exploiting the proposed catalysts’ reactivity and reusability, and interactions with the intrinsic nature of the applied carbohydrate supports; advantages and speculated challenges of the introduced catalysts are deliberated as well.     

Fully asynchronous stochastic coordinate descent: a tight lower bound on the parallelism achieving linear speedup

Mathematical Programming - We seek tight bounds on the viable parallelism in asynchronous implementations of coordinate descent that achieves linear speedup. We focus on asynchronous coordinate...     

A Photoluminescent Ag10Cu6 Cluster Stablized by a PNNP Ligand and Phenylacetylides Selectively and Reversibly Senses Ammonia in Air and Water

A photoluminescent bimetallic cluster [Ag₁₀Cu₆(bdppthi)₂(C≡CPh)₁₂(MeOH)₂(H₂O)](ClO₄)₄ ( 1 , bdppthi=N,N’-bis(diphenylphosphanylmethyl)-tetrahydroimidazole} was synthesized from the PNNP type ligand bdppthi generated in-situ. Upon excitation at 365 nm, 1 exhibited strong phosphorescent emission at 630 nm, which was selectively quenched by NH₃ in air or water. The sensing of NH₃ was rapid and recoverable, with detection limits of 53 ppm (v/v) in N₂ and 21 μmol/L (0.36 ppm, w/w) for NH₃ ⋅ H₂O in water. Cluster 1 could potentially serve as a bifunctional chemical sensor for the efficient detection of ammonia in waste-gas and waste-water.     

The evolution and future of influenza pandemic preparedness

The influenza virus is a global threat to human health causing unpredictable yet recurring pandemics, the last four emerging over the course of a hundred years. As our knowledge of influenza virus evolution, distribution, and transmission has increased, paths to pandemic preparedness have become apparent. In the 1950s, the World Health Organization (WHO) established a global influenza surveillance network that is now composed of institutions in 122 member states. This and other surveillance networks monitor circulating influenza strains in humans and animal reservoirs and are primed to detect influenza strains with pandemic potential. Both the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the WHO have also developed pandemic risk assessment tools that evaluate specific aspects of emerging influenza strains to develop a systematic process of determining research and funding priorities according to the risk of emergence and potential impact. Here, we review the history of influenza pandemic preparedness and the current state of preparedness, and we propose additional measures for improvement. We also comment on the intersection between the influenza pandemic preparedness network and the current SARS-CoV-2 crisis. We must continually evaluate and revise our risk assessment and pandemic preparedness plans and incorporate new information gathered from research and global crises.Subject terms: Influenza virus, Infectious diseases