Flow cytometry based rapid duplexed immunoassay for fusarium mycotoxins.

At small food processing facilities, the most frequently used test to determine if grain-derived mycotoxin concentrations are compliant with legal limits is the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Each kit is designed to detect one of the six dangerous mycotoxins. With the increasing occurrence of coinfection of grain with multiple-mycotoxins in the field and/or during storage, ELISA is no longer a cost effective best assay option.

The progress of interdisciplinarity in invasion science.

Interdisciplinarity is needed to gain knowledge of the ecology of invasive species and invaded ecosystems, and of the human dimensions of biological invasions. We combine a quantitative literature review with a qualitative historical narrative to document the progress of interdisciplinarity in invasion science since 1950. Our review shows that 92.

Biocapacity optimization in regional planning.

Ecological overshoot has been accelerating across the globe. Optimizing biocapacity has become a key to resolve the overshoot of ecological demand in regional sustainable development. However, most literature has focused on reducing ecological footprint but ignores the potential of spatial optimization of biocapacity through regional planning of land use.

Finish line plant-insect interactions mediated by insect feeding mode and plant interference: a case study of Brassica interactions with diamondback moth and turnip aphid.

There are gaps in our understanding of plant responses under different insect phytophagy modes and their subsequent effects on the insect herbivores' performance at late season. Here we compared different types of insect feeding by an aphid, Lipaphis erysimi, and a lepidopteran, Plutella xylostella, and how this affected defensive metabolites in leaves of 2 Brassica species when plants gain maturity. Thiocyanate concentrations after P.

Distinct intrinsic functional brain network abnormalities in methamphetamine-dependent patients with and without a history of psychosis.

Chronic methamphetamine use is associated with executive functioning deficits that suggest dysfunctional cognitive control networks (CCNs) in the brain. Likewise, abnormal connectivity between intrinsic CCNs and default mode networks (DMNs) has also been associated with poor cognitive function in clinical populations. Accordingly, we tested the extent to which methamphetamine use predicts abnormal connectivity between these networks, and whether, as predicted, these abnormalities are compounded in patients with a history of methamphetamine-associated psychosis (MAP).

Magnon Hall effect without Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.

Topological magnon bands and magnon Hall effect in insulating collinear ferromagnets are induced by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) even at zero magnetic field. In the geometrically frustrated star lattice, a coplanar/noncollinear [Formula: see text] magnetic ordering may be present due to spin frustration. This magnetic structure, however, does not exhibit topological magnon effects even with DMI in contrast to collinear ferromagnets.

Enemy at the gates: Rapid defensive trait diversification in an adaptive radiation of lizards.

Adaptive radiation (AR), the product of rapid diversification of an ancestral species into novel adaptive zones, has become pivotal in our understanding of biodiversity. Although it has widely been accepted that predators may drive the process of AR by creating ecological opportunity (e.g.

Chirality-induced magnon transport in AA-stacked bilayer honeycomb chiral magnets.

In this Letter, we study the magnetic transport in AA-stacked bilayer honeycomb chiral magnets coupled either ferromagnetically or antiferromagnetically. For both couplings, we observe chirality-induced gaps, chiral protected edge states, magnon Hall and magnon spin Nernst effects of magnetic spin excitations. For ferromagnetically coupled layers, thermal Hall and spin Nernst conductivities do not change sign as function of magnetic field or temperature similar to single-layer honeycomb ferromagnetic insulator.

Magnon edge states in the hardcore- Bose-Hubbard model.

Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulation has uncovered nonzero Berry curvature and bosonic edge states in the hardcore-Bose-Hubbard model on the gapped honeycomb lattice. The competition between the chemical potential and staggered onsite potential leads to an interesting quantum phase diagram comprising the superfluid phase, Mott insulator, and charge density wave insulator. In this paper, we present a semiclassical perspective of this system by mapping to a spin-1/2 quantum XY model.

Invading a mutualistic network: to be or not to be similar.

Biological invasion remains a major threat to biodiversity in general and a disruptor to mutualistic interactions in particular. While a number of empirical studies have directly explored the role of invasion in mutualistic pollination networks, a clear picture is yet to emerge and a theoretical model for comprehension still lacking. Here, using an eco-evolutionary model of bipartite mutualistic networks with trait-mediated interactions, we explore invader trait, propagule pressure, and network features of recipient community that contribute importantly to the success and impact of an invasion.

A first theoretical realization of honeycomb topological magnon insulator.

It has been recently shown that in the Heisenberg (anti)ferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice, the magnons (spin wave quasipacticles) realize a massless two-dimensional (2D) Dirac-like Hamiltonian. It was shown that the Dirac magnon Hamiltonian preserves time-reversal symmetry defined with the sublattice pseudo spins and the Dirac points are robust against magnon-magnon interactions. The Dirac points also occur at nonzero energy.

Assessing the performance of different DTI motion correction strategies in the presence of EPI distortion correction.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is susceptible to several artifacts due to eddy currents, echo planar imaging (EPI) distortion and subject motion. While several techniques correct for individual distortion effects, no optimal combination of DTI acquisition and processing has been determined. Here, the effects of several motion correction techniques are investigated while also correcting for EPI distortion: prospective correction, using navigation; retrospective correction, using two different popular packages (FSL and TORTOISE); and the combination of both methods.

Prediction and Quantification of Individual Athletic Performance of Runners.

We present a novel, quantitative view on the human athletic performance of individual runners. We obtain a predictor for running performance, a parsimonious model and a training state summary consisting of three numbers by application of modern validation techniques and recent advances in machine learning to the thepowerof10 database of British runners' performances (164,746 individuals, 1,417,432 performances). Our predictor achieves an average prediction error (out-of-sample) of e.

Boosting antenatal care attendance and number of hospital deliveries among pregnant women in rural communities: a community initiative in Ghana based on mobile phones applications and portable ultrasound scans.

Background: The World Health Organization has recommended at least four antenatal care (ANC) visits and skilled attendants at birth. Most pregnant women in rural communities in low-income countries do not achieve the minimum recommended visits and deliver without skilled attendants. With the aim of increasing number of ANC visits, reducing home deliveries, and supplementing care given by ANC clinics, a proposed system based on low-cost mobile phones and portable ultrasound scan machines was piloted.

A general method for parameter estimation in light-response models.

Selecting appropriate initial values is critical for parameter estimation in nonlinear photosynthetic light response models. Failed convergence often occurs due to wrongly selected initial values when using currently available methods, especially the kind of local optimization. There are no reliable methods that can resolve the conundrum of selecting appropriate initial values.

White matter deficits mediate effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on cognitive development in childhood.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders comprise the spectrum of cognitive, behavioral, and neurological impairments caused by prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed on 54 children (age 10.1 ± 1.

The Hayflick Limit May Determine the Effective Clonal Diversity of Naive T Cells.

Having a large number of sufficiently abundant T cell clones is important for adequate protection against diseases. However, as shown in this paper and elsewhere, between young adulthood and >70 y of age the effective clonal diversity of naive CD4/CD8 T cells found in human blood declines by a factor of >10. (Effective clonal diversity accounts for both the number and the abundance of T cell clones.

Chiral magnetic conductivity and surface states of Weyl semimetals in topological insulator ultra-thin film multilayer.

We investigate an ultra-thin film of topological insulator (TI) multilayer as a model for a three-dimensional (3D) Weyl semimetal. We introduce tunneling parameters t S, [Formula: see text], and t D, where the former two parameters couple layers of the same thin film at small and large momenta, and the latter parameter couples neighbouring thin film layers along the z-direction. The Chern number is computed in each topological phase of the system and we find that for [Formula: see text], the tunneling parameter [Formula: see text] changes from positive to negative as the system transits from Weyl semi-metallic phase to insulating phases.

The seesaw effect of winter temperature change on the recruitment of cotton bollworms Helicoverpa armigera through mismatched phenology.

Knowing how climate change affects the population dynamics of insect pests is critical for the future of integrated pest management. Rising winter temperatures from global warming can drive increases in outbreaks of some agricultural pests. In contrast, here we propose an alternative hypothesis that both extremely cold and warm winters can mismatch the timing between the eclosion of overwintering pests and the flowering of key host plants.

Formulating spread of species with habitat dependent growth and dispersal in heterogeneous landscapes.

Habitat heterogeneity can have profound effects on the spreading dynamics of invasive species. Using integro-difference equations, we investigate the spreading dynamics in a one-dimensional heterogeneous landscape comprising alternating favourable and unfavourable habitat patches or randomly generated habitat patches with given spatial autocorrelation. We assume that population growth and dispersal (including emigration probability and dispersal distance) are dependent on habitat quality.

Beyond the continuum: a multi-dimensional phase space for neutral-niche community assembly.

Neutral and niche processes are generally considered to interact in natural communities along a continuum, exhibiting community patterns bounded by pure neutral and pure niche processes. The continuum concept uses niche separation, an attribute of the community, to test the hypothesis that communities are bounded by pure niche or pure neutral conditions. It does not accommodate interactions via feedback between processes and the environment.

Population dynamics and associated factors of cereal aphids and armyworms under global change.

Studying the impacts of global change, which comprises largely climate and landscape changes, on agricultural pests is crucial for developing sustainable pest management. This research is focused on understanding the factors associated with population dynamics of cereal aphids and armyworms feeding on wheat in Henan province in China from 1987 to 2010. Association between changes in climate (temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity) and agricultural characteristics (wheat proportion, crop diversity, fertilizer input, and wheat yield per unit area) and damage from cereal aphids and armyworms were examined.

Real-time measurement and correction of both B0 changes and subject motion in diffusion tensor imaging using a double volumetric navigated (DvNav) sequence.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) requires a set of diffusion weighted measurements in order to acquire enough information to characterize local structure. The MRI scanner automatically performs a shimming process by acquiring a field map before the start of a DTI scan. Changes in B0, which can occur throughout the DTI acquisition due to several factors (including heating of the iron shim coils or subject motion), cause significant signal distortions that result in warped diffusion tensor (DT) parameter estimates.