Food & You: A digital cohort on personalized nutrition.

Nutrition is a key contributor to health. Recently, several studies have identified associations between factors such as microbiota composition and health-related responses to dietary intake, raising the potential of personalized nutritional recommendations. To further our understanding of personalized nutrition, detailed individual data must be collected from participants in their day-to-day lives.

X-ray imaging detector for radiological applications adapted to the context and requirements of low- and middle-income countries.

This paper describes the development of a novel medical x-ray imaging system adapted to the needs and constraints of low- and middle-income countries. The developed system is based on an indirect conversion chain: a scintillator plate produces visible light when excited by the x rays, and then, a calibrated multi-camera architecture converts the visible light from the scintillator into a set of digital images. The partial images are then unwarped, enhanced, and stitched through parallel field programmable gate array processing units and specialized software.

Resource limitation prevents the emergence of drug resistance by intensifying within-host competition.

Slowing the evolution of antimicrobial resistance is essential if we are to continue to successfully treat infectious diseases. Whether a drug-resistant mutant grows to high densities, and so sickens the patient and spreads to new hosts, is determined by the competitive interactions it has with drug-susceptible pathogens within the host. Competitive interactions thus represent a good target for resistance management strategies.

Industry-Wide Surveillance of Marek's Disease Virus on Commercial Poultry Farms.

Marek's disease virus is a herpesvirus of chickens that costs the worldwide poultry industry more than US$1 billion annually. Two generations of Marek's disease vaccines have shown reduced efficacy over the last half century due to evolution of the virus. Understanding where the virus is present may give insight into whether continued reductions in efficacy are likely.

Understanding genetic variation in in vivo tolerance to artesunate: implications for treatment efficacy and resistance monitoring.

Artemisinin-based drugs are the front-line weapon in the treatment of human malaria cases, but there is concern that recent reports of slow clearing infections may signal developing resistance to treatment. In the absence of molecular markers for resistance, current efforts to monitor drug efficacy are based on the rate at which parasites are cleared from infections. However, some knowledge of the standing variation in parasite susceptibility is needed to identify a meaningful increase in infection half-life.

Rapid response to selection, competitive release and increased transmission potential of artesunate-selected Plasmodium chabaudi malaria parasites.

The evolution of drug resistance, a key challenge for our ability to treat and control infections, depends on two processes: de-novo resistance mutations, and the selection for and spread of resistant mutants within a population. Understanding the factors influencing the rates of these two processes is essential for maximizing the useful lifespan of drugs and, therefore, effective disease control. For malaria parasites, artemisinin-based drugs are the frontline weapons in the fight against disease, but reports from the field of slower parasite clearance rates during drug treatment are generating concern that the useful lifespan of these drugs may be limited.

The invasion of southern South America by imported bumblebees and associated parasites.

The Palaearctic Bombus ruderatus (in 1982/1983) and Bombus terrestris (1998) have both been introduced into South America (Chile) for pollination purposes. We here report on the results of sampling campaigns in 2004, and 2010-2012 showing that both species have established and massively expanded their range. Bombus terrestris, in particular, has spread by some 200 km year(-1) and had reached the Atlantic coast in Argentina by the end of 2011.

Crossed fiber optic Bessel beams for curvilinear optofluidic transport of dielectric particles.

Due to its unique non-diffracting and self-reconstructing nature, Bessel beams have been successfully adopted to trap multiple particles along the beam's axial direction. However, prior bulk-optic based Bessel beams have a fundamental form-factor limitation for in situ, in-vitro, and in-vivo applications. Here we present a novel implementation of Fourier optics along a single strand of hybrid optical fiber in a monolithic manner that can generate pseudo Bessel beam arrays in two-dimensional space.

Probing mixed-genotype infections I: extraction and cloning of infections from hosts of the trypanosomatid Crithidia bombi.

We here present an efficient, precise and reliable method to isolate and cultivate healthy and viable single Crithidia bombi cells from bumblebee faeces using flow cytometry. We report a precision of >99% in obtaining single trypanosomatid cells for further culture and analysis ("cloning"). In the study, we have investigated the use of different liquid media to cultivate C.

The genotypic structure of a multi-host bumblebee parasite suggests a role for ecological niche overlap.

The genotypic structure of parasite populations is an important determinant of ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host-parasite interactions with consequences for pest management and disease control. Genotypic structure is especially interesting where multiple hosts co-exist and share parasites. We here analyze the natural genotypic distribution of Crithidia bombi, a trypanosomatid parasite of bumblebees (Bombus spp.

Individual particle handling in a microfluidic system based on parallel laser trapping.

We present an optical trapping system combining individually addressable multiple laser traps with fluorescence spectroscopy. An in-line set of 64 near-IR laser diodes is used to create a line of individually addressable traps inside a microfluidic chip. This system is completed by an excitation/detection line for spectrally resolved fluorescence imaging of trapped particles.

Microfluidic array cytometer based on refractive optical tweezers for parallel trapping, imaging and sorting of individual cells.

Analysis of genetic and functional variability in populations of living cells requires experimental techniques capable of monitoring cellular processes such as cell signaling of many single cells in parallel while offering the possibility to sort interesting cell phenotypes for further investigations. Although flow cytometry is able to sequentially probe and sort thousands of cells per second, dynamic processes cannot be experimentally accessed on single cells due to the sub-second sampling time. Cellular dynamics can be measured by image cytometry of surface-immobilized cells, however, cell sorting is complicated under these conditions due to cell attachment.

Genetic exchange and emergence of novel strains in directly transmitted trypanosomatids.

The breeding structure of protozoan infections, i.e. whether and how frequently parasites exchange genes ("sexual reproduction"), is a crucially important parameter for many important questions; it also matters for how new virulent strains might emerge.

Three-dimensional force measurements in optical tweezers formed with high-NA micromirrors.

The three-dimensional trap stiffness of optical tweezers formed with high-NA micromirrors is investigated by back-focal-plane interferometry and power spectrum analysis. Normalized stiffness values of kappaxy/Ptrap=1.2(microN/m)/mW and kappaz/Ptrap=0.

Temperature-related reversible birefringence changes in rat tail tendon.

By use of a highly sensitive method for measuring slight variations in birefringence it is shown here that a strong reversible correlation exists between rat tail tendon birefringence and temperature. This phenomenon is totally different from the loss of birefringence that results from a denaturation process. Below the threshold temperature leading to denaturation, an increase in temperature is systematically accompanied by a reversible increase in birefringence (0.

UV-irradiation-induced structural transformation of germanoscilicate glass fiber.

Raman spectra of germanosilicate core fibers before and after UV irradiation were investigated. Significant changes of the Raman spectra after irradiation indicate transformation of the glass structure. A possible interpretation of the observed changes is proposed.

Effects of drawing tension on the photosensitivity of Sn-Ge- and B-Ge-codoped core fibers.

The influence of drawing tension on the formation of Bragg gratings in B-Ge- and Sn-Ge-codoped core fibers is investigated by transmission and stress measurements. With increasing drawing tension, the axial stress is reduced in the B-Ge-codoped core but increased in the Sn-Ge-codoped core. A higher drawing tension leads to a photosensitivity enhancement and an increase of the core stress during the grating formation in B-Ge-codoped fibers.

Efficient broadband intracore grating LP(01)-LP(02) mode converters for chromatic-dispersion compensation.

LP(01)-LP(02) mode converters based on UV-written intracore gratings have been fabricated for chromatic-dispersion compensation. The mode converters operate in transmission at wavelengths near 150 nm with spectral bandwidths of 14-25 nm and coupling efficiencies of as much as 90%. A large negative dispersion of -335 ps/(nm km) is obtained for a compensator consisting of the mode converter and a 1490-m-long few-mode fiber.

Fabrication of high-mechanical-resistance Bragg gratings in single-mode optical fibers with continuous-wave ultraviolet laser side exposure.

The mechanical resistance of single-mode fibers containing fiber Bragg gratings inscribed with cw UV laser irradiation is almost identical to that of pristine fiber. The median breaking strength of the gratings' Weibull distribution is more than 5 GPa, and the m value is of the order of 70. Based on a dynamic fatigue model, a Bragg grating lifetime of 50 years with a failure probability of 0.

Optical low-coherence reflectometry characterization of cladding modes excited by long-period fiber gratings.

The group refractive-index difference of cladding modes excited by a long-period fiber grating is characterized by use of the technique of optical low-coherence reflectometry, with a precision of <10(-4) . Very good agreement between theoretical and experimental results is demonstrated.

Stable and widely tunable all-fiber Pr(3+)-doped cw laser system using fiber Bragg gratings.

A simple and strictly all-fiber 1300-nm cw laser is presented. It is tunable over 16 nm with 0.5-nm linewidth and several milliwatts of output power in the whole tuning range from 1292 to 1308 nm.

Video-rate optical low-coherence reflectometry based on a linear smart detector array.

A low-coherence reflectometer based on a conventional Michelson interferometer and a novel silicon detector chip that allows parallel heterodyne detection is presented. Cross-sectional images of 64x256 pixels covering an area of 1.92 mm x 1.

Combining multiple optical trapping with microflow manipulation for the rapid bioanalytics on microparticles in a chip.

An array of four independent laser traps is combined with a polydimethylsiloxane microfluidic chip to form a very compact system allowing parallel processing of biological objects. Strong three dimensional trapping allows holding objects such as functionalized beads in flows at speeds near 1 mm/s, enabling rapid processing. By pressure control of the inlet flows, the trapped objects can be put in contact with different solutions for analysis purpose.

Optical coherence topography based on a two-dimensional smart detector array.

A low-coherence reflectometer based on a conventional Michelson interferometer and a novel silicon detector chip with a two-dimensional array of pixels that allows parallel heterodyne detection is presented. We demonstrate acquisition of three-dimensional images with more than 100,000 voxels per scan at a sensitivity of -58 dB and a rate of 6 Hz.