Common Vehicle Research Articles

Automation Kit for Dual-Mode Military Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Surveillance Missions

The field of autonomous vehicles is an area of great importance nowadays among Intelligent Transport Systems. These autonomous vehicles must meet high standards of robustness, safety and protection to make autonomous driving safer than human driving, thus improving current accident rates and energy efficiency, so its complete implementation in the market is expected in the long term. However, there are other areas, such as the agricultural and military sectors, where the demand for technologies related to autonomous driving is also high but the applicability could be faster. In this sense, the unmanned ground military vehicles (UGV) are a technology available in international armies for some years, but that is still subject to a series of technical, logistical and material limitations that reduce its applicability. This paper presents an automation kit for transforming military service vehicles into military UGVs, developed through the transfer of autonomous vehicle technology from the civil sector to the military sector. This kit has been installed in a quite common vehicle of the Spanish army, in order to provide two functional capabilities: autonomous navigation and teleoperation, in off-road environments with minimal or no traffic marks or infrastructure aids. The vehicle equipped with this kit is oriented to different missions such as circulation in convoys, operation as tele-operated probe vehicle and perimeter surveillance. The automation kit involves no permanent modifications in the vehicle that can be driven manually when desired, allows vehicles to be used both in missions in conflict zones and to support operations in emergencies and natural catastrophes, and can be easily installed in any kind of vehicle.

Identifying car ingress movement strategies before and after total knee replacement

ABSTRACT Background: Post-operative performance of knee bearings is typically assessed in activities of daily living by means of motion capture. Biomechanical studies predominantly explore common tasks such as walking, standing and stair climbing, while overlooking equally demanding activities such as embarking a vehicle. Aims: The aim of this work is to evaluate changes in the movement habits of patients after total knee arthroplasty surgery in comparison to healthy age-matched control participants. Methods: A mock-up car was fabricated based on the architecture of a common vehicle. Ten control participants and 10 patients with severe osteoarthritis of the knee attended a single- and three-motion capture session(s), respectively. Participants were asked to enter the car and sit comfortably adopting a driving position. Three trials per session were used for the identification of movement strategies by means of hierarchical clustering. Task completion time was also measured. Results: Patients’ movement behaviour didn’t change significantly following total knee arthroplasty surgery. Control participants favoured different movement strategies compared to patients post-operatively. Group membership, height and sidedness of the affected joint were found to be non-significant in task completion time. Conclusion: This study describes an alternative movement identification technique for the analysis of the ingress movement that may be used to clinically assess knee bearings and aid in movement simulations and vehicle design.

VAID: An Aerial Image Dataset for Vehicle Detection and Classification

The availability of commercial UAVs and low-cost imaging devices has made the airborne imagery popular and widely available. The aerial images are now extensively used for many applications, especially in the area of intelligent transportation systems. In this work, we present a new aerial image dataset, VAID (Vehicle Aerial Imaging from Drone), for the development and evaluation of vehicle detection algorithms. It contains about 6000 images captured under different traffic conditions, and annotated with 7 common vehicle categories for network training and testing. We compare the of vehicle detection results using the current state-of-the-art network architectures and various aerial image datasets. The experiments have demonstrated that training the networks using our VAID dataset can provide the best vehicle detection results. Our aerial image dataset is made available publicly at http://vision.ee.ccu.edu.tw/aerialimage/ and the code is available at https://github.com/KaiChun-RVL/VAID_dataset .

Culturable bacteria resident on lettuce might contribute to accumulation of human noroviruses

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the primary non-bacterial pathogens causing acute gastroenteritis worldwide. Attachment and invasion of HuNoVs are thought to involve histo-blood group antigens (HBGAs). Romaine lettuce, which is usually consumed raw, is a common food-related vehicle for HuNoVs transmission. This study investigated the possibility that bacteria resident on the surface of lettuce leaves contribute to norovirus adherence to this food. To test this hypothesis, bacteria were isolated from romaine lettuce and screened to evaluate whether they produced any polysaccharides with structures resembling HBGAs. Twenty-seven bacterial isolates were screened and 18, belonging to 13 different genera, were found to produce HBGAs-like polysaccharides that were recognized by monoclonal antibodies specific to type A, B, H and Lewis a, b, x and y. One bacterial isolate, belonging to the genus Pseudomonas was further investigated because it produced polysaccharides with the widest range of HBGA types, including type B, H and Lewis a, b and x. The Pseudomonas HBGAs-like polysaccharides were found to be extracellular and their production was enhanced when the bacteria were cultured in oligotrophic medium. HuNoVs capture assays revealed that GI.1, GI.8, and GII.2, GII.3, GII.4, GII.6, GII.12, GII.17 genotypes can be bind to Pseudomonas HBGAs-like polysaccharides. The direct evidence of bacterial production HBGAs-like polysaccharides demonstrates one possible mechanism driving accumulation of HuNoVs on lettuce.

Solving Generalized Vehicle Routing Problem With Occasional Drivers via Evolutionary Multitasking.

With the emergence of crowdshipping and sharing economy, vehicle routing problem with occasional drivers (VRPOD) has been recently proposed to involve occasional drivers with private vehicles for the delivery of goods. In this article, we present a generalized variant of VRPOD, namely, the vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous capacity, time window, and occasional driver (VRPHTO), by taking the capacity heterogeneity and time window of vehicles into consideration. Furthermore, to meet the requirement in today's cloud computing service, wherein multiple optimization tasks may need to be solved at the same time, we propose a novel evolutionary multitasking algorithm (EMA) to optimize multiple VRPHTOs simultaneously with a single population. Finally, 56 new VRPHTO instances are generated based on the existing common vehicle routing benchmarks. Comprehensive empirical studies are conducted to illustrate the benefits of the new VRPHTOs and to verify the efficacy of the proposed EMA for multitasking against a state-of-art single task evolutionary solver. The obtained results showed that the employment of occasional drivers could significantly reduce the routing cost, and the proposed EMA is not only able to solve multiple VRPHTOs simultaneously but also can achieve enhanced optimization performance via the knowledge transfer between tasks along the evolutionary search process.

Flow Cytometry to Assess the Counts and Physiological State of Cronobacter sakazakii Cells after Heat Exposure.

Cronobacter sakazakii is an opportunistic pathogen that is associated with outbreaks of neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis, septicaemia, and meningitis. Reconstituted powdered infant formulae is the most common vehicle of infection. The aim of the present study is to gain insight into the physiological states of C. sakazakii cells using flow cytometry to detect the compromised cells, which are viable but non-culturable using plate-based methods, and to evaluate the impact of milk heat treatments on those populations. Dead-cell suspensions as well as heat-treated and non-heat-treated cell suspensions were used. After 60 or 65 °C treatments, the number of compromised cells increased as a result of cells with compromised membranes shifting from the heat-treated suspension. These temperatures were not effective at killing all bacteria but were effective at compromising their membranes. Thus, mild heat treatments are not enough to guarantee the safety of powered infant formulae. Flow cytometry was capable of detecting C. sakazakii’s compromised cells that cannot be detected with classical plate count methods; thus, it could be used as a screening test to decrease the risk derived from the presence of pathogenic viable but non-culturable cells in this food that is intended for newborns’ nutrition.

Microbiological Safety of Leafy Vegetables Produced at Houeyiho and Sèmè-Kpodji Vegetable Farms in Southern Benin: Risk Factors for Campylobacter spp.

Foodborne infections, mainly those attributable to Campylobacter, are one of the most common causes of intestinal diseases, of bacterial origin in humans. Although the vehicle of transmission is not always identified, the most common vehicles are poultry, poultry products, and contaminated water. In Southern Benin, an excessive use of poultry manure as fertilizer in vegetable farms was noted. This survey aimed to determine the prevalence and concentration of Campylobacter spp., especially Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli, in selected environmental samples (poultry manure, and irrigation water) and freshly harvested leafy vegetables in two (Houeyiho and Sèmè-Kpodji) vegetable farms in southern Benin. To achieve this objective, we analyzed 280 samples, including 224 samples of leafy vegetables (Solanum macrocarpon and Lactuca sativa capita), 28 samples of irrigation water, and 28 samples of poultry manure. The analysis of the samples taken was carried out according to the modified NF EN ISO 10272-1 standard. Of the 280 samples analyzed in this survey, 63 were positive for Campylobacter contamination. For leafy vegetable samples analyzed in this survey, the contamination rate was of 15.63%. 60.71% of poultry manure samples analyzed were contaminated with Campylobacter spp. and 39.29% of irrigation water samples were contaminated. The statistical analysis of these results showed that there is a correlation between the contamination of leafy vegetables, poultry manure, and irrigations (p < 0.01). Campylobacter jejuni (53.97%) was more involved in contaminations than Campylobacter coli (36.57%). This study has shown that there is a real risk of food poisoning by Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli among consumers of leafy vegetables in southern Benin. The origin of contamination of these leafy vegetables is poultry manure used as fertilizer in vegetable gardens and irrigation water used.

Optimization of a Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter for Electric Vehicle Applications Including Cost Consideration

This paper presents a method to find the optimal configuration for an electric vehicle energy storage system using a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) inverter. CHB multilevel inverters enable a better utilization of the battery pack, because cells/modules with manufacturing tolerances in terms of capacity can be selectively discharged instead of being passively balanced by discharging them over resistors. The balancing algorithms have been investigated in many studies for the CHB topology. However, it has not yet been investigated to which extend a conventional pack can be modularized in a CHB configuration. Therefore, this paper explores different configurations by simulating different switch models, switch configurations, and number of levels for a CHB inverter along with a reference load model to find the optimal design of the system. The configuration is also considered from an economically point of view, as the most efficient solution might not be cost-effective to be installed in a common production vehicle. It is found that four modules per phase give the best compromise between efficiency and costs. Paralleling smaller switches should be preferred over the usage of fewer, larger switches. Moreover, selecting specific existing components results in higher savings compared to theoretical optimal components.

1199. Provider Perspectives on Nonsterile Glove Use in the NICU

BackgroundLate-onset infection is a serious cause of mortality and long-term morbidity in NICU patients. Healthcare worker hands are the most common vehicle for transmission of pathogenic organisms to neonates. Studies have suggested a reduction in infections in neonatal and pediatric patients cared for with universal nonsterile glove use.MethodsWe developed an online survey (https://fhspeds.mcmaster.ca/pedsCapOne/surveys/?s=9RDX7EHT79) for clinicians to understand the current glove use and hand hygiene practices in NICUs in North America. The survey was sent to neonatologists and Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialists via the AAP Neonatal-Perinatal Section listserv, SHEA and the Canadian Neonatal Network.ResultsOf 336 responses; the majority were from physicians at level 3 to 4 NICUs (97%), and from the United States (96.1%). Beyond sterile procedures, sterile gloves were used for central line dressing changes (88.4%), contact with central nervous system shunts (61.0%), and direct contact with central lines (57.4%). Nonsterile gloves were used most commonly for universal precautions and diaper changes (Table 1). Almost half of participants also used nonsterile gloves for all patients and 37.5% for extremely low birth weight (<1000 g) infants. While most sites (76.8%) stated that nonsterile gloves were not required for parents, 15.8% requested gloves also for parents. 58% of respondents felt there was not enough evidence for a practice change at this time and 53.3% felt further study was needed to assess the effect of nonsterile gloves and infection (Figures 2 and 3). Almost a third of respondents (n = 109) would be interested in participating in a randomized study to assess glove-based care. Major concerns with this approach included a possible reduction in hand hygiene compliance, environmental waste, and glove contamination (Figure 4).ConclusionThere is variability in gloving practices across NICUs in North America, with equipoise and interest in a potential randomized study to further explore the hypothesis that nonsterile gloves prevent late-onset infections in neonates. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Optimization of the simultaneous pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem based on carbon tax

Purpose In order to reduce logistics transportation costs and respond to low-carbon economy, the purpose of this paper is to study the more practical and common simultaneous pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem, which considers the carbon tax policy. A low-carbon simultaneous pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem model is constructed with the minimum total costs as the objective function. Design/methodology/approach This study develops a mathematical optimization model with the minimum total costs, including the carbon emissions costs as the objective function. An adaptive genetic hill-climbing algorithm is designed to solve the model. Findings First, the effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by numerical experiments. Second, the research results prove that carbon tax mechanism can effectively reduce carbon emissions within effective carbon tax interval. Finally, the research results also show that, under the carbon tax mechanism, the effect of vehicle speed on total costs will become more obvious with the increase of carbon tax. Research limitations/implications This paper only considers the weight of the cargo, but it does not consider the volume of the cargo. Originality/value Few studies focus on environmental issues in the simultaneous pickup and delivery problem. Thus, this paper constructs a green path optimization model, combining the carbon tax mechanism for the problem. This paper further analyzes the impact of carbon tax value on total costs and carbon emission; at the same time, the effect of vehicle speed on total cost is also analyzed.

Vehicle Logo Recognition Based on Enhanced Matching for Small Objects, Constrained Region and SSFPD Network.

Vehicle Logo Recognition (VLR) is an important part of vehicle behavior analysis and can provide supplementary information for vehicle identification, which is an essential research topic in robotic systems. However, the inaccurate extraction of vehicle logo candidate regions will affect the accuracy of logo recognition. Additionally, the existing methods have low recognition rate for most small vehicle logos and poor performance under complicated environments. A VLR method based on enhanced matching, constrained region extraction and SSFPD network is proposed in this paper to solve the aforementioned problems. A constrained region extraction method based on segmentation of the car head and car tail is proposed to accurately extract the candidate region of logo. An enhanced matching method is proposed to improve the detection performance of small objects, which augment each of training images by copy-pasting small objects many times in the unconstrained region. A single deep neural network based on a reduced ResNeXt model and Feature Pyramid Networks is proposed in this paper, which is named as Single Shot Feature Pyramid Detector (SSFPD). The SSFPD uses the reduced ResNeXt to improve classification performance of the network and retain more detailed information for small-sized vehicle logo detection. Additionally, it uses the Feature Pyramid Networks module to bring in more semantic context information to build several high-level semantic feature maps, which effectively improves recognition performance. Extensive evaluations have been made on self-collected and public vehicle logo datasets. The proposed method achieved 93.79% accuracy on the Common Vehicle Logos Dataset and 99.52% accuracy on another public dataset, respectively, outperforming the existing methods.

Pheno and genotyping of Salmonella from slaughtered pigs in a Portuguese abattoir reveal differential persistence ability

Pork is one of the most common vehicles of non-typhoid foodborne Salmonella, with the slaughterhouse representing a key point for the infection of pigs and carcass contamination. By comparing matching samples taken from animals at the dirty (skin) and clean (inner and outer carcass surface) areas of the slaughterline, this study aimed to assess potential Salmonella contamination routes of pig carcasses within a Portuguese abattoir. Forty-four Salmonella isolates were retrieved from 120 pigs, and further characterized through pheno and genotypical methods. Most frequent serotypes found were Salmonella 4, [5],12:i:- (47.7%), Salmonella Rissen (40.9%) and Salmonella Derby (11.4%). Isolates were most commonly collected from the skin of pigs sampled at the dirty area (59.1%), followed by the inner (38.1%) and outer (9.1%) carcass surface sampled at the clean area. Most isolates (79.5%) were considered to be multidrug resistant and all harbored the virulence associated genes invA, invH, sopB, stn, slyA, phoP, phoQ and agfA. PFGE analysis revealed that most bacterial isolates belonging to the same serotype, recovered from animals from different farms, and slaughtered at separate days were genetically undistinguishable. Furthermore, our findings suggest that Salmonella Rissen might have an increased ability to endure on the slaughterhouse environment when compared with the other serotypes.Concluding, this study shows that the slaughterhouse may be a key point for the dissemination of resistant and virulent Salmonella strains, which stresses the importance of the implementation of good hygiene practices at the slaughterhouse and of the application of corrective measures to avoid cross-contamination.

Comparative Study of Different Vehicle Models with Respect to Their Dynamic Behavior

Various simulation models are used extensively for the design and the optimisation of vehicle suspension systems, as well as the application of various control algorithms in them. The selection of the most suitable model for these purposes is never explained and many times unnecessary complexity is added in them. In this respect, an assessment regarding the accuracy of the most common vehicle models is conducted. Thus, four vehicle models with various configurations are compared in terms of accuracy. More specifically, both passive and semi active suspensions are employed to the models, while the effect of adding anti-roll bars and tire dampers is also investigated. The transient behaviour of the suspension system and the overall vehicle performance are assessed in terms of ride comfort, vehicle handling and road holding using different road excitations. The results illustrate the ability of lower accuracy models to cope well and that they should be preferred most of the times. Also, anti-roll bars and tire dampers should be neglected when the ride comfort is investigated, whereas they have to be included when simulations regarding road holding are conducted.

Studi Perancangan Ruang Henti Khusus (RHK) Sepeda Motor Di Simpang Bersinyal (Studi Kasus Simpang Tugu Pecel, Simpang Ruang Terbuka Hijau (RTH) Kartini Dan Simpang Diponegoro Di Kota Madiun)

The growth of motorcycle in Indonesia increased rapidly and is the most common vehicle on the highway, especially at a crossroads in the city of Madiun. As a result, there is often an accumulation of irregular motorcycle and breaking traffic at the junction in the red phase. This is indicated by motorcycle reaching more than 30 motorcycle at the junction in the red phase. That inflic the a conflicts that affect the movement of other vehicle. Related with this problem, to reduce the occurrence of conflict, needed traffic engineering by providing facility Advance Stop Lines (ASLs) at the Signed Intersection which is intended so that vehicle can exit from Intersection regularly and reduce the accidents at the Signed Intersection. The purpose of this research is knowing the Level Of Service (LOS) and determine the desain of Advance Stop Lines (ASLs) at Signed Intersection with research area is the Tugu Pecel Intersection, Ruang Terbuka Hijau Intersetion and Diponegoro Intersection in Madiun City. The method used in this research is the Indonesian Road Capacity Manual (MKJI,1997). The Level of Service (LOS) in existing condition is at Tugu Pecel Intersection is A (very good), at the RTH Kartini Intersection is E (bad) and Diponegoro Intersection is F (very bad). Design of Advance Stop Lines at the north approaching Tugu Pecel Intersection is 2 lanes with approach lanes (10,00 m × 1,00 m) and with an area of 6,75 m × 4,66 m, at the east approach of RTH Kartini Intersection is 2 lane with approach lanes (7,00 m × 1,00 m) and the area of 5,25 m ×4,66 m and the north Diponegoro Intersection are 2 aprroaching lanes with aprroac lanes (10,00 m ×1,00 m) and area 4,50 m ×4,66 m, south approach 2 lanes with approach lanes (7,00 m ×1,00 m) and area 4,50 m ×4,66 m, east approach is 2 lanes with approach lanes (9,50 m × 1,00m) and an area of 5,50 m ×4,66 m, the western approach is 2 lanes with approach lanes (7,00 m ×1,00 m) and an area 5,50 m ×4,66 m.

GII.17 norovirus infections in outbreaks of acute nonbacterial gastroenteritis in Osaka City, Japan during two decades.

Norovirus (NoV) is a major cause of viral gastroenteritis, and GII.4 has been the predominant genotype worldwide since the mid-1990s. During the 2014 to 2015 winter, a rare genotype, NoV GII.17, emerged and became prevalent mainly in East Asia. Over the past two decades, NoV molecular surveillance in Osaka City, Japan, has revealed that NoV GII.17 was detected for the first time in February 2001 and that NoV GII.17-associated outbreaks remarkably increased during the 2014 to 2015 season, with higher incidence recorded in January to March 2015. Genetic analysis indicated that 28 GII.17 outbreak strains were closely related to the novel GII.P17-GII.17 variants represented by the Kawasaki308/2015/JP strain, similar to that in other regions. Statistical analysis showed that NoV GII.17 infections were more common in adults than GII.3 and GII.4 infections, suggesting that the affected adults most likely did not have antibodies against NoV GII.17 and the novel GII.17 variant had recently appeared. Regarding transmission, food was one of the most important factors involved in the spread of NoV GII.17 among adults; 61% of GII.17 outbreaks were foodborne, with oysters being the most common vehicle. Interplay between pathogens, hosts, and environmental factors was considered to be important in the 2014 to 2015 NoV GII.17 epidemic.

Cytomembrane-Mediated Transport of Metal Ions with Biological Specificity.

Metal ions are of significant importance in biomedical science. This study reports a new concept of cytomembrane‐mediated biospecific transport of metal ions without using any other materials. For the first time, cytomembranes are exploited for two‐step conjugation with metal ions to provide hybrid nanomaterials. The innate biofunction of cell membranes renders the hybrids with superior advantages over common vehicles for metal ions, including excellent biocompatibility, low immunogenic risk, and particularly specific biotargeting functionality. As a proof‐of‐concept demonstration, cancer cell membranes are used for in vivo delivery of various metal ions, including ruthenium, europium, iron, and manganese, providing a series of tumor‐targeted nanohybrids capable of photothermal therapy/imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, photoacoustic imaging, and fluorescence imaging with improved performances. In addition, the special structure of the cell membrane allows easy accommodation of small‐molecular agents within the nanohybrids for effective chemotherapy. This study provides a new class of metal‐ion‐included nanomaterials with versatile biofunctions and offers a novel solution to address the important challenge in the field of in vivo targeted delivery of metal ions.

Evaluation of porcine gastric mucin assay for detection and quantification of human norovirus in fresh herbs and leafy vegetables

Leafy vegetables and fresh herbs are important parts of a healthy diet, however, they can be common vehicles of norovirus (NoV) infection and lead to serious health and economic concerns globally. NoV is highly infectious and persistent in the food and the environment, while being resistant to conventional food decontamination practices. Herbs and leafy greens are often consumed raw, and if contaminated with NoV, they may cause illness. Consequently, for outbreak prevention and surveillance purposes, sensitive and rapid methods are required to detect the presence of infectious NoV in naturally contaminated produce during its shelf life. Herein, we compared the extraction efficiency of the ISO/TS 15216-1:2017 method with the porcine gastric mucin coated magnetic beads (PGM-MB) assay, combined with heat-denaturation for RNA extraction, for detection of human NoV in artificially contaminated fresh green seaweed, basil, mint, and baby spinach. Droplet-digital RT-PCR was used to quantify the extracted genome by both methods. Our data demonstrated that while the PGM-MB assay takes considerably less time, it yields significantly higher recovery rates compared with the ISO/TS 15216-1:2017. Furthermore, since this method has the ability to be adapted in high-throughput and automated systems, it can be further modified to be employed by the food industry to reduce the number of NoV illnesses and outbreaks at the source of distribution.

Understanding the Relationships between Demand for Shared Ride Modes: Case Study using Open Data from New York City

The concept of shared travel, making trips with other users via a common vehicle, is far from novel. However, a changing technological climate has laid the tracks for new dynamically shared modes in the form of transportation network companies (TNCs), to substantially impact travel behavior. The current body of research on how these modal offerings impact the demand for existing shared modes (e.g., bikeshare, transit) is growing. However, a comprehensive investigation of the temporal evolution of the demand for TNCs and their relationship to other shared modes, is lacking. This research tackles this important limitation by analyzing ridership data for TNCs, taxi, subway, and Citi Bike in New York City using daily ridership data from January 2015 through June 2017. The primary objective was to understand the relationship between TNCs and other shared modal offerings while accounting for the influence of temporal trends and other exogenous factors. A dynamic linear modeling framework was formulated to accommodate time-dependent trends, periodicity, and time-varying exogenous factors on the demand for TNCs. As a preliminary work, the findings of this study reinforce the observed substitution relationship between taxis and TNCs. The results may also indicate a substitutional relationship between TNCs and Citi Bike, and a complementary relationship with subway, however these results still need to be explored further. With potentially impactful findings for planning and policymakers, the predictive model developed in the study can be used to carry out forecasting in support of short- and long-term operations and planning applications.

Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh-The role of bivalve molluscs as transmission vehicles for human norovirus infections.

Human noroviruses are recognized as the leading worldwide cause of sporadic and epidemic viral gastroenteritis, causing morbidity and mortality in impoverished developing countries and engendering enormous economic losses in developed countries. Transmitted faecal-orally, either via person-to-person contact, or by consumption of contaminated foods or water, norovirus outbreaks are often reported in institutional settings or in the context of communal dining. Bivalve molluscs, which accumulate noroviruses via filter feeding and are often eaten raw or insufficiently cooked, are a common food vehicle implicated in gastroenteritis outbreaks. The involvement of bivalve molluscs in norovirus outbreaks and epidemiology over the past two decades are reviewed. The authors describe how their physiology of filter feeding can render them concentrated vehicles of norovirus contamination in polluted environments and how high viral loads persist in molluscs even after application of depuration practices and typical food preparation steps. The global prevalence of noroviruses in bivalve molluscs as detected by different monitoring efforts is determined and the various methods currently utilized for norovirus extraction and detection from bivalve matrices described. An overview of gastroenteritis outbreaks affirmatively associated with norovirus-contaminated bivalve molluscs as reported in the past 18years is also provided. Strategies for risk reduction in shellfish contamination and subsequent human infection are discussed.

A Facile and Convenient Synthesis of Boc-Protected 5-Carboxyspermine

Gene therapy is a powerful technology for treating incurable and hereditary disease in humans. In the recent years, a lot of studies have been done on the development of DNA carriers. Nonviral vectors, like liposomes, polymers, and micelles, has become common vehicles due to their safety. The key compound of DOGS, DOSPA and DOSPER is the 5-carboxyspermine which formed the poly amine head-group and carries four positive charges. In general, multivalent head-group shows more transfection efficiency than monovalent analogues. In this paper, the efficient and simple synthesis of Boc-protected 5-carboxyspermine is described. Boc-protected polyamines were synthesized from (S)- 2,5-diaminopentanoic acid monohydrochloride (L-ornithine) monohydrochloride through both cyanoethylation and direct catalytic reduction of nitriles with the combination of nickel (II) chloride, sodium borohydride and di-tert-butyl decarbonate (BOC2O) in a one-pot two-reaction.