Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) process as a practical and competitive sensing strategy was utilized between carbon quantum dots (C-dots) and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) for the determination of mercuric ions. The novel synthesized C-dots with the quantum yield of 84% acted as the donor and Ag NPs operated as the acceptor in the FRET process leading to the fluorescence quenching of the C-dots. In the presence of Hg(II) ions, the FRET-quenched fluorescence emission of the C-dots-Ag NPs system was recovered owing to oxidation of Ag NPs by Hg(II) ions, so that the turn-on fluorescence intensity was directly proportional to the Hg(II) ion concentration. Accordingly, combination of the FRET system with the redox reaction was firstly utilized to construct an innovative turn-off/on fluorescent sensor for the quantification of Hg(II) ion. The calibration plot was linear in the concentration range 0.5-500.0 nmol L-1 with a determination coefficient (R2) of 0.9965. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were 0.10 and 0.35 nmol L-1, respectively, according to the IUPAC definition. The method was applied for the determination of Hg(II) ion in lake water, wastewater and tea samples, and the proper relative recoveries (98.0-104.0%) were obtained for the spiked samples. The method has high potential to diagnose trace values of mercuric ions in real samples with high sensitivity and repeatability.Molecular charge-transfer interaction of a series of electron π-acceptors of 1,4-benzoquinone (BQ), 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) and Tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) with selected donors of 1-phenyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (PTHIQ) and 4-aminoacetanilide (ACE) have been studied in methanol at room temperature. The stoichiometry of the complexes was determined by photometric titration method and was found to be 11, in all the cases. Spectro-kinetic interaction studies along with rate constants and observed formation constants (K) indicated that the strength of the complex formations is PTHIQ-BQ less then PTHIQ-DDQ less then PTHIQ-TCNQ. Also, Similar observations happened in ACE-BQ and less then ACE-DDQ less then ACE-TCNQ systems. FT-IR results indicated that the point of interaction was identifying in NH moiety of PTHIQ and NH2 moiety of ACE with series of π-acceptor complexes. The experimental results were compared with Ab initio DFT calculations at the B3LYP/6-31 + G(d) level of theory. The increasing order of the experimentally measured formation constant of CT-complexes (PTHIQ and ACE with series of acceptors) was well supported by theoretical HOMO-LUMO energy gap and drastically changes in Mulliken charges of NH moiety of PTHIQ, NH2 moiety of ACE with complexation with acceptors.This study evaluated the in vitro activity of KHP-3757 (a novel LpxC inhibitor) and comparator agents against recent, geographically diverse, Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from a global surveillance program as well as molecularly characterized extended-spectrum-β-lactamase-positive, metallo-β-lactamase-positive, and colistin-resistant strains. KHP-3757 (MIC50/90, 0.25/0.5 mg/L; 97.4% inhibited at ≤0.5 mg/L) demonstrated potent in vitro activity based on MIC90 values against P. aeruginosa isolates including extended-spectrum-β-lactamase-positive, metallo-β-lactamase-positive, and colistin-resistant strains outperforming other comparator agents.

To evaluate the efficacy of Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) using a traditional and a technological intervention (elastic touch-display) in improving the coordination of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as a primary outcome, and the timing and strength control of their movements as secondary outcomes.

Twenty-two children with ASD completed 8 NMT sessions, as a part of a 2-month intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to either use an elastic touch-display (experimental group) or tambourines (control group). Alflutinib cell line We conducted pre- and post- assessment evaluations, including the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) and motor assessments related to the control of strength and timing of movements.

All participants improved their coordination, according to the DCDQ scores, and exhibited better control of their movements according to the strength and timing assessments after the intervention. Participants who used the elastic touch-display scored higher on the DCDQ.

NMT is an efficacious treatment to improve the coordination skills of children with ASD. Elastic touch-displays provide more benefits than the use of tambourines.

NMT is an efficacious treatment to improve the coordination skills of children with ASD. Elastic touch-displays provide more benefits than the use of tambourines.Conotoxins are small peptide toxins which are rich in disulfide and have the unique diversity of sequences. It is significant to correctly identify the types of ion channel-targeted conotoxins because that they are considered as the optimal pharmacological candidate medicine in drug design owing to their ability specifically binding to ion channels and interfering with neural transmission. Comparing with other feature extracting methods, the reduced amino acid cluster (RAAC) better resolved in simplifying protein complexity and identifying functional conserved regions. Thus, in our study, 673 RAACs generated from 74 types of reduced amino acid alphabet were comprehensively assessed to establish a state-of-the-art predictor for predicting ion channel-targeted conotoxins. The results showed Type 20, Cluster 9 (T = 20, C = 9) in the tripeptide composition (N = 3) achieved the best accuracy, 89.3%, which was based on the algorithm of amino acids reduction of variance maximization. Further, the ANOVA with incremental feature selection (IFS) was used for feature selection to improve prediction performance. Finally, the cross-validation results showed that the best overall accuracy we calculated was 96.4% and 1.8% higher than the best accuracy of previous studies. Based on the predictor we proposed, a user-friendly webserver was established and can be friendly accessed at http//bioinfor.imu.edu.cn/ictcraac.