Respiratory Disease Surveillance in the Middle East and Latin America during the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-2022.

Characterizing the epidemiology of circulating respiratory pathogens during the COVID-19 pandemic could clarify the burden of acute respiratory infections and monitor outbreaks of public health and military relevance. The US Department of Defense supported 2 regions for influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infections surveillance, one in the Middle East through US Naval Medical Research Unit EURAFCENT, and another in Latin America through US Naval Medical Research Unit SOUTH. During 2020‒2022, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected a total of 16,146 nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swab samples from sentinel sites in Jordan (n = 11,305) and Latin America (n = 4,841).

Characterizing local pig breeds as reservoirs for the domestic pig genetic variability worldwide via contributions to gene diversity and allelic richness.

Contributions to gene diversity and allelic richness were computed in a total of 2,260 domestic pig genotypes, sharing 53,626 autosomal SNPs, belonging to 98 pig subpopulations worldwide (41 Asian, 696 genotypes; 20 American, 262 genotypes; and 37 European, 686 genotypes), using 616 pig samples belonging to 5 different Cosmopolitan pig breeds as an outgroup, to ascertain if local pig subpopulation can be considered reservoirs of genetic diversity for the whole domestic pig species worldwide. Assessments were carried out for the whole dataset and separately for the American-European and Asian subsets. Effective population size was computed at the subpopulation level using molecular coancestry and linkage disequilibrium information to ensure that estimates of contributions to diversity were not affected by demographic issues.

Oxidation of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural into 2,5-Diformylfuran on Alkali Doped Ru/C Catalysts. Electron Properties of Ruthenium Species as Descriptor of Catalytic Activity.

Selective aerobic oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural into 2,5-diformylfuran has been achieved on alkali doped Ru/C catalyst. Optimization of Ru metal nanoparticles, as well as the nature and amount of the alkali dopant have been performed. The results showed that doping the Ru/C catalyst with controlled amount of potassium increases the catalytic activity, 2.

One-pot chemo- and photo-enzymatic linear cascade processes.

The combination of chemo- and photocatalyses with biocatalysis, which couples the flexible reactivity of the photo- and chemocatalysts with the highly selective and environmentally friendly nature of enzymes in one-pot linear cascades, represents a powerful tool in organic synthesis. However, the combination of photo-, chemo- and biocatalysts in one-pot is challenging because the optimal operating conditions of the involved catalyst types may be rather different, and the different stabilities of catalysts and their mutual deactivation are additional problems often encountered in one-pot cascade processes. This review explores a large number of transformations and approaches adopted for combining enzymes and chemo- and photocatalytic processes in a successful way to achieve valuable chemicals and valorisation of biomass.

Population dynamics of potentially harmful haplotypes: a pedigree analysis.

Background: The identification of low-frequency haplotypes, never observed in homozygous state in a population, is considered informative on the presence of potentially harmful alleles (candidate alleles), putatively involved in inbreeding depression. Although identification of candidate alleles is challenging, studies analyzing the dynamics of potentially harmful alleles are lacking. A pedigree of the highly endangered Gochu Asturcelta pig breed, including 471 individuals belonging to 51 different families with at least 5 offspring each, was genotyped using the Axiom PigHDv1 Array (658,692 SNPs).