Chlorine dioxide (ClO2) has recently emerged as an ideal disinfectant and has shown a wide range of antimicrobial activities in various pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, the virucidal effect of ClO2 at low concentration (0.02 ppm) and higher concentration (0.06 – 0.09 ppm) against Adenovirus and Herpesvirus was evaluated based on the NF T 72-281 and ASTM 1053-11 standard methods at different exposure times. The virus suspension was dried onto the carrier and then exposed to gaseous ClO2 (gClO2) at 22 ± 2∘C. For Adenovirus, exposure at a low concentration of ClO2 at the middle height resulted in the average log10 reduction of 0.95, 2.65, and 5.30 after 1, 3, and 6 h post-exposure (pe), respectively. Moreover, more than 4-log10 reduction was achieved at 4 and 6 h pe with higher concentrations of ClO2. On the other hand, the antiviral activity of gClO2 at the middle height was also effective against Herpesvirus. In particular, at 1 h pe, a less than 4-log10 reduction was observed at all examined concentrations of ClO2, whereas exposure for 3 and 6 h (with low concentration) or 2 h (with higher concentration) inactivated completely viruses attached to the carrier. These results suggested that ClO2 fumigation is a potential alternative method for disinfecting healthcare facilities, high-containment laboratories, and households with a safe concentration for human health.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of isolated lactic acid bacteria (LAB) on the quality of high moisture rye silage. Rye forage (Secale cereale L.) was harvested at the heading stage (27.3% of dry matter (DM)) and cut into approximately 3-5 cm lengths. Then, the forage divided into 4 treatments with different inoculants: 1) No additives (CON); 2) Lactobacillus brevis strain 100D8 at a 1.2 x 105 colony-forming unit (cfu)/g of fresh forage (LBR); 3) Leuconostoc holzapfelii strain 5H4 at a 1.0 x 105 cfu/g of fresh forage (LHO); and 4) Mixture of LBR and LHO (1:1 ratio) applied at a 1.0 x 105 cfu/g of fresh forage (MIX). About 3 kg of forage from each treatment was ensiled into a 20 L mini-bucket silo in quadruplicate for 100 days. After silo opening, silage was collected for analyses of chemical compositions, in vitro nutrient digestibilities, fermentation characteristics, and microbial enumerations. The CON silage had the highest concentrations of neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber (p = 0.006; p = 0.008) and a lowest in vitro DM digestibility (p < 0.001). The pH was highest in CON silage, while lowest in LBR and MIX silages (p < 0.001). The concentrations of ammonia-N, lactate, and acetate were highest in LBR silage (p = 0.008; p < 0.001; p < 0.001). Propionate and butyrate concentrations were highest in CON silage (p = 0.004; p < 0.001). The LAB and yeast counts were higher in CON and LHO silages compare to LBR and MIX silages (p < 0.001). However, the mold did not detect in all treatments. Therefore, this study could conclude that L. brevis 100D8 and Leu. holzapfelii strain 5H4 can improve the digestibility and anti-fungal activity of high moisture rye silage.

Purpose: Researchers have shown that aesthetic judgments of artworks depend on contexts, such as the authenticity of an artwork (Newman & Bloom, 2011) and an artwork’s location of display (Kirk et al., 2009; Silveira et al., 2015). The present study aims to examine whether contextual information related to the creator, such as whether an artwork was created by a human or artificial intelligence (AI), influences viewers’ preference judgments of an artwork. Methods: Images of Impressionist landscape paintings were selected as human-made artworks. AI-made artwork stimuli were created using Google’s Deep Dream Generator by mimicking the Impressionist style via deep learning algorithms. Participants performed a preference rating task on each of the 108 artwork stimuli accompanied by one of the two creator labels. After this task, an art experience questionnaire (AEQ) was given to participants to examine whether individual differences in art experience influence their preference judgments. Results: Setting AEQ scores as a covariate in a two-way ANCOVA analysis, the stimuli with the human-made context were preferred over the stimuli with the AI-made context. Regarding the types of stimuli, the viewers preferred AI-made stimuli to human-made stimuli. There was no interaction effect between the two factors. Conclusion: These results suggest that preferences for visual artworks are influenced by the contextual information of the creator when the individual differences in art experience are controlled.

RADTRAN is a code that assesses the radiation risk of radioactive material transportation. RADTRAN assumes that the package is a point source or a line source regardless of package type and corrects the external dose rate using a shape factor which depends on the critical dimension of the package. However, the external dose rate calculated using a shape factor may be different from the actual external dose rate. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the effect of the shape factor on the external dose rate. In this study, the effect of the shape factor on the external dose rate in RADTRAN was analyzed by comparison with MCNP. This study analyzed change in external dose rate depending on the distance from the package and the critical dimension. The distance from the package was in the range of 1–800 m. The shape of the package was assumed to be cylindrical with a radius of 1 m, and the critical dimensions of the package were assumed to be 2, 4, and 8 m. Attenuation and build-up in the air were not considered to consider only the effect on the shape factor. When simulating the exposure situation using MCNP, the package was assumed to be a volume source, and flux by distance from the package was calculated using F5 tally. The dose rate at 1 m from the package was normalized to 2 mSv·hr−1. As a result of the analysis, the external dose rates of the package were higher in RADTRAN than in MCNP. For the critical dimension of 2, 4, and 8 m, when the distance from package is 1–10 m, the RADTRAN was 1.83, 4.08, and 5.27 times higher on average than MCNP, respectively. And when the distance from the package was 10–100 m and 100–800 m, RADTRAN was 1.10, 2.02, 3.01 times and 1.04, 1.92, 2.43 times higher than MCNP, respectively. It was found that the larger the distance from the package is and the smaller the critical dimension of the package is, the less conservatively RADTRAN assessed. It is because the shape of the package gets closer to the point source as the distance from the package increases, and the shape factor decreases as the critical dimension of the package decreases. The result of this study can be used as the basis for radiation risk assessment when transporting radioactive materials.

We investigated the effect of a synthetic complement peptide C3a on the outcome of Brucella abortus 544 infection in a murine macrophage cell line RAW264.7 cell. First, we determined the highest non-cytotoxic concentration of the peptide in the cell line. We also found that the peptide significantly increased the growth of the bacteria at 8 and 24 h. Although the number of bacterial CFU was also elevated at 48 and 72 h, the increases were not significant as compared to controls. We further investigated the effect of C3a peptide on the growth of Brucella by pre-incubating the peptide at various temperatures and found that the effect was reversed at 24 h post-incubation suggesting that incubation of peptide at high temperatures including 65°C or 95°C could inactivate its action. This also could indicate the beneficial effect of high temperature during infection. Although several studies reported the inhibitory effect of different antimicrobial peptides including C3a, the present study preliminarily revealed that it had no positive contribution on the control of B. abortus 544 infection in vitro and indirectly to its receptor, CD88, which belongs to GPCR. Moreover, the encouraged further exploration of the effect of other similar peptides would be performed for the purpose of finding Brucella-host cell interaction for the control of disease progression.

This study aims to investigate the effects of exogenous succinic acid (SCA) on Brucella (B.) abortus infection in macrophage RAW 264.7 cells and ICR mice. Firstly, the in vitro experiment was conducted by MTT cytotoxicity and bacterial internalization assay to evaluate the uptake of B. abortus into macrophage cells. Two non-cytotoxic concentrations of SCA demonstrated attenuated invasion of Brucella into macrophages at 30 and 45 min post- infection (pi). Secondly, ICR mice were treated with SCA and infected with B. abortus. On day-14 pi, spleen and blood serum were collected to evaluate the bacterial burden and total spleen weight as well as the production of cytokine/chemokine, respectively. The results showed that SCA treatment promoted bacterial growth and reduced the total spleen weight in mice. Furthermore, SCA treatment increased the level of IL-10 cytokine in the sera, while dampening the production of MCP-1 chemokine compared to the control. The results of bacterial load in spleen and spleen weight together with cytokine/chemokine production profile in the sera indicated that SCA induced the host anti-inflammatory response which is beneficial for the survival of Brucella. Therefore, these findings suggest that SCA contributed to host immunity against Brucella infection and the emerging potential topic-immunometabolism should be invested for further investigations.