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Urban Aedes mosquitoes are vectors of many viruses affecting human health such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses. Insecticide resistance and environmental toxicity risks hamper the effectiveness of chemical control against these mosquito vectors. Alternative control methods, such as the use of mosquito-specific entomopathogenic viruses should be explored. Numerous studies have focused on evaluating the potential of different densoviruses species as biological control agents. However, knowledge on the extent of inter- and intra-specific variations in the susceptibility of Aedes mosquitoes to infection by different densoviruses remains insufficient. In this study, we compared infection and mortality rates induced by the Aedes albopictus densovirus 2 in different strains of Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The two Aedes species were different in terms of susceptibility to viral infection. Under laboratory conditions, Aedes albopictus densovirus 2 appeared more virulent for the different strains of Aedes aegypti tested than for those of Aedes albopictus. In addition, we also found significant intra-specific variation in infection and mortality rates. Thus, although even if Aedes albopictus densoviruses could be powerful biocontrol agents used in the management of urban Aedes populations, our results also call into question the use of single viral isolate as biocontrol agents.Memristive crossbar architectures are evolving as powerful in-memory computing engines for artificial neural networks. However, the limited number of non-volatile conductance states offered by state-of-the-art memristors is a concern for their hardware implementation since trained weights must be rounded to the nearest conductance states, introducing error which can significantly limit inference accuracy. Moreover, the incapability of precise weight updates can lead to convergence problems and slowdown of on-chip training. In this article, we circumvent these challenges by introducing graphene-based multi-level (>16) and non-volatile memristive synapses with arbitrarily programmable conductance states. We also show desirable retention and programming endurance. Finally, we demonstrate that graphene memristors enable weight assignment based on k-means clustering, which offers greater computing accuracy when compared with uniform weight quantization for vector matrix multiplication, an essential component for any artificial neural network.The aim of the present study was to unveil the chemopreventive potentials of aqueous Tinospora cordifolia stem extract and its active component viz. Arabinogalactan against Benzo(a)pyrene-induced pulmonary carcinogenesis. Animals were divided into six groups (I) Control, (II) aqueous Tinospora cordifolia (200 mg/kg b.wt, p.o.), (III) arabinogalactan (7.5 mg/kg b.wt, p.o.), (IV) benzo(a)pyrene (50 mg/kg b.wt, i.p.) at second and fourth week of study, (V) benzo(a)pyrene + aqueous Tinospora cordifolia, and (VI) benzo(a)pyrene + arabinogalactan. The benzo(a)pyrene treatment resulted in severe alterations in the cellular arrangement and morphology of the alveolar tissue in benzo(a)pyrene group. However, benzo(a)pyrene + aqueous Tinospora cordifolia and benzo(a)pyrene + arabinogalactan groups revealed classical features of apoptosis including chromatin condensation and formation of apoptotic bodies. UNC3866 cost Furthermore, Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy analysis showed disturbed phospholipid saturation and protein sectural, biochemical, and biomolecular aspects.The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a key brain region involved in complex cognitive functions such as reward processing and decision making. Neuroimaging studies have reported unilateral OFC response to reward-related variables; however, those studies rarely discussed this observation. Nevertheless, some lesion studies suggest that the left and right OFC contribute differently to cognitive processes. We hypothesized that the OFC asymmetrical response to reward could reflect underlying hemispherical difference in OFC functional connectivity. Using resting-state and reward-related functional MRI data from humans and from rhesus macaques, we first identified an asymmetrical response of the lateral OFC to reward in both species. Crucially, the subregion showing the highest reward-related asymmetry (RRA) overlapped with the region showing the highest functional connectivity asymmetry (FCA). Furthermore, the two types of asymmetries were found to be significantly correlated across individuals. In both species, the right lateral OFC was more connected to the default mode network compared to the left lateral OFC. Altogether, our results suggest a functional specialization of the left and right lateral OFC in primates.

Since chronic cough has common neurobiological mechanisms and pathophysiology with chronic pain, both clinical disorders might be interrelated. Hence, we examined the association between chronic cough and chronic pain in adult subjects in the Rotterdam Study, a large prospective population-based cohort study.

Using a standardised questionnaire, chronic pain was defined as pain lasting up to 6 months and grouped into a frequency of weekly/monthly or daily pain. Chronic cough was described as daily coughing for at least 3 months duration. The longitudinal and cross-sectional associations were investigated bi-directionally.

Of 7141 subjects in the study, 54% (n=3888) reported chronic pain at baseline. The co-prevalence of daily chronic pain and chronic cough was 4.4%. Chronic cough was more prevalent in subjects with daily and weekly/monthly chronic pain compared with those without chronic pain (13.8% and 10.3%

8.2%, p<0.001). After adjustment for potential confounders, prevalent chronic pain was significantly associated with incident chronic cough (OR 1.47, 95% CI 1.08-1.99). The association remained significant in subjects with daily chronic pain (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.06-2.11) with a similar effect estimate, albeit non-significant, in those with weekly/monthly chronic pain (OR 1.43, 95% CI 0.98-2.10). After adjustment for covariables, subjects with chronic cough had a significant risk of developing chronic pain (OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.02-2.62) compared with those without chronic cough.

Chronic cough and chronic pain confer risk on each other among adult subjects, indicating that both conditions might share common risk factors and/or pathophysiologic mechanisms.

Chronic cough and chronic pain confer risk on each other among adult subjects, indicating that both conditions might share common risk factors and/or pathophysiologic mechanisms.