Examination of genetic lines of as potential sources of organic agricultural pest control agents.

is a Mediterranean shrub cultivated in Israel for traditional, ceremonial use only, with more than 98 % of the crop biomass, equivalent to 26-27 tons per ha per annum, considered agricultural waste. Therefore, potentially profitable use for this excess is being highly sought. As is also known for its unique terpene and terpenoid content, this work evaluated the impact of essential oil (EO) extracted from several cultivars on storage insects, nematodes, fungi, and pathogens.

Convex Representation of Metabolic Networks with Michaelis-Menten Kinetics.

Polyhedral models of metabolic networks are computationally tractable and can predict some cellular functions. A longstanding challenge is incorporating metabolites without losing tractability. In this paper, we do so using a new second-order cone representation of the Michaelis-Menten kinetics.

Immunomodulatory effects and improved outcomes with cisplatin- versus carboplatin-based chemotherapy plus atezolizumab in urothelial cancer.

In metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC), cisplatin versus carboplatin leads to durable disease control in a subset of patients. The IMvigor130 trial reveals more favorable effects with atezolizumab combined with gemcitabine and cisplatin (GemCis) versus gemcitabine and carboplatin (GemCarbo). This study investigates the immunomodulatory effects of cisplatin as a potential explanation for these observations.

The Role of Permanently Resident Populations in the Two-Patches SIR Model with Commuters.

We consider a two-patches SIR model where communication occurs through commuters, distinguishing explicitly permanently resident populations from commuters populations. We give an explicit formula of the reproduction number and show how the proportions of permanently resident populations impact it. We exhibit nonintuitive situations for which allowing commuting from a safe territory to another one where the transmission rate is higher can reduce the overall epidemic threshold and avoid an outbreak.

Equivalent Formulations of Optimal Control Problems with Maximum Cost and Applications.

We revisit the optimal control problem with maximum cost with the objective to provide different equivalent reformulations suitable to numerical methods. We propose two reformulations in terms of extended Mayer problems with state constraints, and another one in terms of a differential inclusion with upper-semi-continuous right member without state constraint. For the latter we also propose a scheme that approximates from below the optimal value.

Performance Study of Two Serial Interconnected Chemostats with Mortality.

The present work considers the model of two chemostats in series when a biomass mortality is considered in each vessel. We study the performance of the serial configuration for two different criteria which are the output substrate concentration and the biogas flow rate production, at steady state. A comparison is made with a single chemostat with the same total volume.

Consideration of Maintenance in Wine Fermentation Modeling.

We show that a simple model with a maintenance term can satisfactorily reproduce the simulations of several existing models of wine fermentation from the literature, as well as experimental data. The maintenance describes a consumption of the nitrogen that is not entirely converted into biomass. We show also that considering a maintenance term in the model is equivalent to writing a model with a variable yield that can be estimated from data.

Life cycle assessment as decision support tool for water reuse in agriculture irrigation.

This study presents a decision support tool that evaluates the environmental efficiency of water reclamation for agricultural irrigation, among other options. The developed tool is published as open source at https://doi.org/10.

Integrated Pest Management for Stored Grain: Potential Natural Biological Control by a Parasitoid Wasp Community.

Insect contamination of stored grain is a major concern for the grain industry. Phosphine is currently the standard fumigant used to control insect pests in stored grain. However, some species and populations of insects that infest stored grain exhibit resistance to this fumigant and consumers are concerned about pesticide residues.

Study of the chemostat model with non-monotonic growth under random disturbances on the removal rate.

We revisit the chemostat model with Haldane growth function, here subject to bounded random disturbances on the input flow rate, as often met in biotechnological or waste-water industry. We prove existence and uniqueness of global positive solution of the random dynamics and existence of absorbing and attracting sets that are independent of the realizations of the noise. We study the long-time behavior of the random dynamics in terms of attracting sets, and provide first conditions under which biomass extinction cannot be avoided.

Study of performance criteria of serial configuration of two chemostats.

This paper deals with thorough analysis of serial configurations of two chemostats. We establish an in-depth mathematical study of all possible steady states, and we compare the performances of the two serial interconnected chemostats with the performances of a single one. The comparison is evaluated under three different criteria.

Nature-based Group Therapy Reflections: A Grounded Theory Study.

Nature-based therapies have a long history in mental health care. Beneficial effects have been documented for nature-based therapies in a variety of other health care settings. The aims of this grounded theory study were to understand the processes of maintaining nature-based therapeutic groups and the value of the activities to patients in a psychiatric inpatient setting.

Single-Cell Analyses Inform Mechanisms of Myeloid-Targeted Therapies in Colon Cancer.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful tool for defining cellular diversity in tumors, but its application toward dissecting mechanisms underlying immune-modulating therapies is scarce. We performed scRNA-seq analyses on immune and stromal populations from colorectal cancer patients, identifying specific macrophage and conventional dendritic cell (cDC) subsets as key mediators of cellular cross-talk in the tumor microenvironment. Defining comparable myeloid populations in mouse tumors enabled characterization of their response to myeloid-targeted immunotherapy.

Unravelling the heterogeneity and dynamic relationships of tumor-infiltrating T cells by single-cell RNA sequencing analysis.

T cells are crucial for the success of immune-based cancer therapy. Reinvigorating antitumor T cell activity by blocking checkpoint inhibitory receptors has provided clinical benefits for many cancer patients. However, the efficacy of these treatments varies in cancer patients and the mechanisms underlying these diverse responses remain elusive.

Insights from Microbial Transition State Theory on Monod's Affinity Constant.

Microbial transition state theory (MTS) offers a theoretically explicit mathematical model for substrate limited microbial growth. By considering a first order approximation of the MTS equation one recovers the well-known Monod's expression for growth, which was regarded as a purely empirical function. The harvest volume of a cell as defined in MTS theory can then be related to the affinity concept, giving a new physical interpretation to it, and a new way to determine its value.

Inter-clinician eConsults without programmatic incentives or requirements: a qualitative study of primary care provider perspectives.

Background: Inter-clinician electronic consultation (eConsult) programmes are becoming more widespread in the USA as health care systems seek innovative ways of improving specialty access. Existing studies examine models with programmatic incentives or requirements for primary care providers (PCPs) to participate.

Objective: We aimed to examine PCP perspectives on eConsults in a system with no programmatic incentive or requirement for PCPs to use eConsults.

Author Correction: Demonstration of facilitation between microalgae to face environmental stress.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

About biomass overyielding of mixed cultures in batch processes.

We study mechanisms that can produce an increase of biomass production in batch processes when considering mixed cultures, compared to pure cultures. We show that growth thresholds or variable yields can produce 'overyielding', while this is not possible in the classical batch model with multiple species. We give sufficient conditions on the characteristics of the species to obtain overyielding, and illustrate these theoretical results with numerical simulations.

Demonstration of facilitation between microalgae to face environmental stress.

Positive interactions such as facilitation play an important role during the biological colonization and species succession in harsh or changing environments. However, the direct evidence of such ecological interaction in microbial communities remains rare. Using common freshwater microalgae isolated from a High Rate Algal Pond HRAP treating wastewaters, we investigated with both experimental and modeling approaches the direct facilitation between two algal strains during the colonization phase.

The clinical KRAS(G12C) inhibitor AMG 510 drives anti-tumour immunity.

KRAS is the most frequently mutated oncogene in cancer and encodes a key signalling protein in tumours. The KRAS(G12C) mutant has a cysteine residue that has been exploited to design covalent inhibitors that have promising preclinical activity. Here we optimized a series of inhibitors, using novel binding interactions to markedly enhance their potency and selectivity.

TRIMming TGF-β signals in Th17 cells.

The precise downstream mediators of TGF-β signaling in Th17 and T reg cells remain unclear. In this issue of M, Tanaka et al. report that Trim33 transduces TGF-β signals in Th17 cells to generate an optimal proinflammatory cytokine profile.

Major changes in the composition of a Southern Ocean bacterial community in response to diatom-derived dissolved organic matter.

In the Southern Ocean, natural iron fertilization in the wake of islands leads to annually occurring spring phytoplankton blooms associated with enhanced heterotrophic activity through the release of labile dissolved organic matter (DOM). The aim of this study was to investigate experimentally how diatom-derived DOM affects the composition of Southern Ocean winter water bacterial communities and to identify the most responsive taxa. A bacterial community collected in the naturally iron-fertilized region off Kerguelen Island (KEOPS2 October-November 2011) was grown onboard in continuous cultures, on winter water alone or amended with diatom-derived DOM supplied at identical DOC concentrations.

Influence of operator skill level on the clinical outcome of non-surgical periodontal treatment: a retrospective study.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of operators experience and skill on treatment results of initial non-surgical periodontal therapy.

Materials And Methods: Initial periodontal treatment was carried out by either second-year periodontal residents (PR) or last year dental students (DS). From the treatment records of patients in each group, plaque and bleeding indices, and pocket depth (PD) at baseline and at re-evaluation were collected retrospectively on each tooth at six locations.

The Inhibitory Receptor NKG2A Sustains Virus-Specific CD8⁺ T Cells in Response to a Lethal Poxvirus Infection.

CD8(+) T cells and NK cells protect from viral infections by killing virally infected cells and secreting interferon-γ. Several inhibitory receptors limit the magnitude and duration of these anti-viral responses. NKG2A, which is encoded by Klrc1, is a lectin-like inhibitory receptor that is expressed as a heterodimer with CD94 on NK cells and activated CD8(+) T cells.