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Candida auris biofilms exhibit decreased susceptibility to echinocandins, which is associated with poorer clinical outcomes. Farnesol is a quorum-sensing molecule enhancing the activity of antifungals; therefore, we evaluated the in vitro effect of farnesol with anidulafungin, caspofungin, or micafungin against biofilms using fractional inhibitory concentration indexes (FICI), Bliss independence model, LIVE/DEAD-assay and scanning electron microscopy. Based on mathematical models, farnesol caused synergism in eleven out of twelve cases (FICIs range 0.133-0.507; Bliss synergy volume range 70.39–204.6 μM2%). This was confirmed by microscope images of combination-exposed biofilms. Our study showed the prominent effect of farnesol with echinocandins against C. auris biofilms.

Simultaneous thermal, acoustic, and magnetic emission (AE and ME) measurements during thermally induced martensitic transformation in Ni 2 MnGa single crystals demonstrate that all three types of the above noises display many coincident peaks and the same start and finish temperatures. The amplitude and energy distribution functions for AE and ME avalanches satisfy power-law behavior, corresponding to the symmetry of the martensite. At zero external magnetic field asymmetry in the exponents was obtained: their value was larger for heating than for cooling. Application of constant, external magnetic fields (up to B = 722 mT) leads to the disappearance of the above asymmetry, due to the decrease of the multiplicity of the martensite variants. Time correlations (i.e., the existence of nonhomogeneous temporal processes) within AE as well as ME emission events are demonstrated by deviations from the uncorrelated behavior on probability distributions of waiting times as well as of a sequence of number of events. It is shown that the above functions collapse on universal master curves for cooling and heating as well as for AE and ME noises. The analysis of the existence of temporal correlations between AE and ME events revealed that at short times the acoustic signals show a time delay relative to the magnetic one, due to the time necessary for the propagation of the ultrasound. At intermediate times, as expected, the magnetic signal is delayed, i.e., the magnetic domain rearrangement followed the steps of structural transformation. At much longer times the deviation from an uncorrelated (Poisson-type) behavior is attributed to the nonhomogeneity of the avalanche statistics.

The jerky character of austenite-martensite phase transformation in Ni 2 MnGa single crystals (with 10M martensite structure) has been investigated by thermal cycling using a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and by detection of acoustic emissions (AEs) at low cooling and heating rates (0.1 K/min and below). It is illustrated that, besides the low cooling and heating rate, mass and surface roughness are also important parameters in optimizing the best signal/noise ratio in order to obtain individual peaks suitable for statistical analysis. Three types of samples, differing in the twin structure and twin boundary behavior, were investigated with and without surface roughening made by electro-erosion. The statistical analysis, carried out for both (thermal and acoustic) types of signals, provided power-law behavior. In calorimetric measurements the energy exponents, obtained in cooling, were the same within the experimental errors (ε = 1.7 ± 0.2) for the three samples investigated. In acoustic emission experiments the energy and amplitude, α, exponents were determined both for cooling and heating. The exponents for cooling and heating runs are slightly different. They are larger for heating for both α and ε, in accordance with the asymmetric acoustic activity: we observed higher acoustic activity (higher number of hits) during cooling. The effect of the surface roughness is negligible in the exponents (but higher acoustic activity corresponds to higher roughness) and the following values were obtained: ε = 1.5 ± 0.1 and α = 2.1 ± 0.1 for cooling as well as ε = 1.8 ± 0.1 and α = 2.6 ± 0.1 for heating. Our results are in accordance with the results of Gallardo et al. [Phys. Rev. B 81, 174102 (2010)

Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a neuropeptide with diverse developmental roles, including differentiation of skeletal elements. It is a positive regulatory factor of chondrogenesis and osteogenic differentiation in vitro, but little is known about its in vivo role in bone formation. In our experiments, diaphyses of long bones from hind limbs of PACAP gene-deficient mice showed changes in thickness and increased staining intensity. Our main goal was to perform a detailed morphological and molecular biological analysis of femurs from PACAP knockout (KO) and wild type (WT) mice. Transverse diameter and anterior cortical bone thickness of KO femurs showed significant alterations with disturbed Ca2+ accumulation and collagen type I expression. Higher expression and activity of alkaline phosphatase were also observed, accompanied by increased fragility PACAP KO femurs. Increased expression of the elements of bone morphogenic protein (BMP) and hedgehog signalling was also observed, and are possibly responsible for the compensation mechanism accounting for the slight morphological changes. In summary, our results show that lack of PACAP influences molecular and biomechanical properties of bone matrix, activating various signalling cascade changes in a compensatory fashion. The increased fragility of PACAP KO femur further supports the role of endogenous PACAP in in vivo bone formation.

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