Effects of acute exposure to ultra-wideband pulsed electromagnetic fields on the liver and kidneys of mice.

The biosafety of ultra-wideband (UWB) pulses, which are characterized by simultaneously high power and a high bandwidth ratio, has gained increasing attention. Although there is substantial prior literature on the biological effects of UWB pulses on both cells and animals, an explicit, unequivocal and definite pattern of the corresponding biological responses remains elusive, and the systemic secondary consequences are also still not fully understood. In this study, we found that exposing mice to UWB pulses resulted in the alteration of several biochemical blood parameters, which further prompted us to investigate changes in the liver and kidneys of mice exposed to UWB pulses with different field intensities and different durations. The data demonstrated that exposure to UWB pulses significantly increased the levels of ALT and AST, increased oxidative stress, and could even induce the accumulation of lipid droplets in hepatocytes. The total number of pulses under the tested acute exposure regiment contributed most to the observed hepatic and rental dysfunction. Notably, the physiological and molecular changes recovered approximately 72 hours after exposure. These results imply the potential risk of acute exposure to UWB pulses, and highlight the meaningful targets for further long-term study of chronic exposure.

Cell-Based Biosensor with Dual Signal Outputs for Simultaneous Quantification of Phenylacetic Acid and Phenylethylamine.

Despite the importance of 2-phenylacetic acid, a plant hormone in the endogenous auxin family, its biosynthesis pathway has yet to be elucidated. In this study, we developed a novel whole-cell biosensor for the simultaneous quantification of 2-phenylacetic acid (PA) and 2-phenylethylamine (PEA) through the regulation of bacterial catabolism of aromatic compounds. We used the PA regulon to enable the recognition of PA and PEA. Differentiation of PEA from PA involves the incorporation of the FeaR regulon within the same whole-cell biosensor to report the presence of aromatic amines. The proposed system is highly sensitive to PA as well as PEA.

Determination of Gold Ions in Human Urine Using Genetically Engineered Microorganisms on a Paper Device.

This paper presents a whole-cell biosensor that operates in conjunction with a smartphone-based fluorescence diagnostic system on a paper device to monitor the concentration of gold ions in human urine. The heavy metal-tolerant bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans was genetically engineered for use as a chassis in a red fluorescent protein (RFP)-based microbial sensor. The biosensor is highly sensitive to gold ions, with a detection limit of 110 nM. The proposed smartphone-based analysis system provides a user-friendly approach to design tools of personal health monitoring for reporting the presence of gold ions in human urine.

Quantifiers induced by subjective expected value of sample information.

The ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator provides a unified framework for multiattribute decision making (MADM) under uncertainty. In this paper, we attempt to tackle some issues arising from the quantifier guided aggregation using OWA operators. This allows us to consider a more general case involving the generation of quantifier targeted at the specified decision maker (DM) by using sample information. In order to do that, we first develop a repeatable interactive procedure in which with the given sample values, and the expected values the DM involved provides with personal preferences, we build nonlinear optimal models to extract from the DM information about his/her decision attitude in an OWA weighting vector form. After that, with the obtained attitudinal weighting vectors we suggest a suitable quantifier just for this DM by means of the piecewise linear interpolations. This obtained quantifier is totally derived from the behavior of the DM involved and thus inherently characterized by his/her own attitudinal character. Owing to the nature of this type of quantifier, we call it the subjective expected value of sample information-induced quantifier. We show some properties of the developed quantifier. We also prove the consistency of OWA aggregation guided by this type of quantifier. In contrast with parameterized quantifiers, our developed quantifiers are oriented toward the specified DMs with proper consideration of their decision attitudes or behavior characteristics, thus bringing about more intuitively appealing and convincing results in the quantifier guided OWA aggregation.