Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents.

The ability of type II superconductors to carry large amounts of current at high magnetic fields is a key requirement for future design innovations in high-field magnets for accelerators and compact fusion reactors, and largely depends on the vortex pinning landscape comprised of material defects. The complex interaction of vortices with defects that can be grown chemically, e.g., self-assembled nanoparticles and nanorods, or introduced by postsynthesis particle irradiation precludes a priori prediction of the critical current and can result in highly nontrivial effects on the critical current. Here, we borrow concepts from biological evolution to create a vortex pinning genome based on a genetic algorithm, naturally evolving the pinning landscape to accommodate vortex pinning and determine the best possible configuration of inclusions for two different scenarios: a natural evolution process initiating from a pristine system and one starting with preexisting defects to demonstrate the potential for a postprocessing approach to enhance critical currents. Furthermore, the presented approach is even more general and can be adapted to address various other targeted material optimization problems.

Comparative analysis of reproductive tract microbiomes in modern and slower-growing broiler breeder lines.

Introduction: The reproductive tract microbiome in hens is of interest because bacteria in the reproductive tract could potentially affect fertilization and egg production, as well as integrate into the forming egg and vertically transmit to progeny. Methods: The reproductive tract microbiome of 37-week-old modern commercial Cobb breeding dams was compared with that of dams from a broiler Legacy line which has not undergone selection since 1986. All animals were kept together under the same management protocol from day of hatch to avoid confounders. Results: In regards to reproductive abilities, Cobb dams' eggs weighed more and the magnum section of their reproductive tract was longer. In regards to microbiome composition, it was found that the reproductive tract microbiomes of the two lines had a lot in common but also that the two breeds have unique reproductive tract microbiomes. Specifically, the order Pseudomonadales was higher in the magnum of Legacy dams, while Verrucomicrobiales was lower. In the infundibulum, Lactobacillales were higher in the Legacy dams while Verrucomicrobiales, Bacteroidales, RF32 and YS2 were lower. Discussion: our results show that breeding programs have modified not only the physiology of the reproductive tract but also the reproductive tract microbiome. Additional research is required to understand the implications of these changes in the reproductive tract microbiome on the chicken host.

A data mining approach to selecting herbs with similar efficacy: Targeted selection methods based on medical subject headings (MeSH).

ETHNO-PHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Natural products have long been the most important source of ingredients in the discovery of new drugs. Moreover, since the Nagoya Protocol, finding alternative herbs with similar efficacy in traditional medicine has become a very important issue. Although random selection is a common method of finding ethno-medicinal herbs of similar efficacy, it proved to be less effective; therefore, this paper proposes a novel targeted selection method using data mining approaches in the MEDLINE database in order to identify and select herbs with a similar degree of efficacy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From among sixteen categories of medical subject headings (MeSH) descriptors, three categories containing terms related to herbal compounds, efficacy, toxicity, and the metabolic process were selected. In order to select herbs of similar efficacy in a targeted way, we adopted the similarity measurement method based on MeSH. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, we built up three different validation datasets which contain lists of original herbs and corresponding medicinal herbs of similar efficacy. RESULTS: The average area under curve (AUC) of the proposed algorithm was found to be about 500% larger than the random selection method. We found that the proposed algorithm puts more hits at the front of the top-10 list than the random selection method, and precisely discerns the efficacy of the herbs. It was also found that the AUC of the experiments either remained the same or increased slightly in all three validation datasets as the search range was increased. CONCLUSION: This study reveals and proves that the proposed algorithm is significantly more accurate and efficient in finding alternative herbs of similar efficacy than the random selection method. As such, it is hoped that this approach will be used in diverse applications in the ethno-pharmacology field.