A simple novel device for air sampling by electrokinetic capture.

BackgroundA variety of different sampling devices are currently available to acquire air samples for the study of the microbiome of the air. All have a degree of technical complexity that limits deployment. Here, we evaluate the use of a novel device, which has no technical complexity and is easily deployable.ResultsAn air-cleaning device powered by electrokinetic propulsion has been adapted to provide a universal method for collecting samples of the aerobiome. Plasma-induced charge in aerosol particles causes propulsion to and capture on a counter-electrode. The flow of ions creates net bulk airflow, with no moving parts. A device and electrode assembly have been re-designed from air-cleaning technology to provide an average air flow of 120 lpm. This compares favorably with current air sampling devices based on physical air pumping. Capture efficiency was determined by comparison with a 0.4 μm polycarbonate reference filter, using fluorescent latex particles in a controlled environment chamber. Performance was compared with the same reference filter method in field studies in three different environments. For 23 common fungal species by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), there was 100 % sensitivity and apparent specificity of 87 %, with the reference filter taken as "gold standard." Further, bacterial analysis of 16S RNA by amplicon sequencing showed equivalent community structure captured by the electrokinetic device and the reference filter. Unlike other current air sampling methods, capture of particles is determined by charge and so is not controlled by particle mass. We analyzed particle sizes captured from air, without regard to specific analyte by atomic force microscopy: particles at least as low as 100 nM could be captured from ambient air.ConclusionsThis work introduces a very simple plug-and-play device that can sample air at a high-volume flow rate with no moving parts and collect particles down to the sub-micron range. The performance of the device is substantially equivalent to capture by pumping through a filter for microbiome analysis by quantitative PCR and amplicon sequencing

Reducing Delay and Quantum Cost in the Novel Design of Reversible Memory Elements

AbstractIn a computational model, that uses transitions from one state of the abstract machine to another, a necessary condition for reversibility is that, the relation of the mapping from states to their successors must be one-to-one. In these works, the primary focus of design is to optimize number of reversible gates and garbage outputs. The calculation of number of gates is not a good option to check the complexity of a circuit as each gate has different architectural complexity decided by a parameter called quantum cost. Delay, hardly addressed in the existing works available in literature, is another good parameter to be optimized for fast reversible computation. In this work, we have presented novel designs of basic sequential circuits like latch that are optimum in terms of delay, quantum cost and garbage. We have also demonstrated quantum cost efficient D-FF, SR-FF, JK-FF & T-FF, along with their master slave configurations

Study of metabolic changes-glycoprotein and phospholipids levels in patients of malaria

Background: In erythrocytic stage, malarial parasites meet their high glucose requirement only by modulating the host cell membrane by increasing transport of sugar across the host cell membrane. This leads to a transmembrane gradient of the substrate and finally leading to alterations of metabolic changes and permeability of RBC membrane. Therefore, the aim of present study was to determine the parameters which reflect the status of RBC membrane and their association with the severity of malaria in a large cohort of known patients of malaria, which was caused by the Plasmodium Species.Methods: Blood sample were collected in EDTA bulb at the time of admission (day-1) and on third day (day-3). The samples were analyzed within 24 hours of collection. Erythrocytic total phospholipid is measured by modified connerty method, Total sialic acid (TSA) is measured by TBA/dimethyl sulphoxide method.Results: The mean levels of erythrocytic phospholipid, plasma TSA and PBSA in the cases of malaria were significantly increase (P<0.001) as compared to those in the control group. In the follow up study the same parameters were studied in patients post anti-malarial treatment day-3. The level of erythrocyte phospholipid, plasma TSA and PBSA were reversed.Conclusions: On the basis of the present study it is suggested that the anti-malarial drug regimen must be supported by antioxidants and trace elements supplementation to improve the status of deviated biochemical parameters towards normalcy

Study of antioxidant status in malaria patients

Background: Oxidative stress plays an important role in the development of metabolic changes in malaria patients. During infection RBCs are exposed to continual oxidative stress. The univalent reduction of oxygen results in a series of cytotoxic oxygen species such as O2-, H2O2, OH•. Objective was to determine the level of oxidative stress in patients suffering from malaria.Methods: The present study was conducted on 551 malaria patients and 211 age-sex matched controls, in department of Biochemistry, C U Shah Medical College, Surendranagar, Gujarat from April 2012 to May 2013.  In stage-I, day-1 malaria patient’s v/s control group, In stage-II, day-3 v/s day-1 after anti-malarial treatment and in Stage-III day-3 v/s day-1 after anti-malarial + antioxidant treatment.Results: The mean erythrocytic activity of SOD, CAT, GST were decreased (0.71±0.25EU, 9.9±2.4μmol/sec, and 11.7±3.9 U/gmHb% respectively), mean level of GSH and MDA were increased (42.1±6.06gm/Hb%, 10.9±2.83 respectively) significantly (P<0.001) as compared to control group. In the follow up study with anti-malarial treatment the mean levels of erythrocytic GSH and MDA (28.7±7.54gm/Hb% and 8.08±1.95nM/L) decreased significantly (P<0.001 and P<0.01 respectively), whereas mean activity of erythrocytic enzymes like SOD, CAT and GST (0.99±0.15 EU, 15.8±2.68μmol/sec and 22.5±5U/gmHb%) were increased significantly (P<0.001) as compared to day-1.Conclusions: Erythrocytic antioxidant enzymes, GSH and MDA may be considered to be reliable biochemical markers for diagnostic and therapeutic potential in malaria

From Damage Percolation to Crack Nucleation Through Finite Size Criticality

We present a unified theory of fracture in disordered brittle media that reconciles apparently conflicting results reported in the literature. Our renormalization group based approach yields a phase diagram in which the percolation fixed point, expected for infinite disorder, is unstable for finite disorder and flows to a zero-disorder nucleation-type fixed point, thus showing that fracture has a mixed first order and continuous character. In a region of intermediate disorder and finite system sizes, we predict a crossover with mean-field avalanche scaling. We discuss intriguing connections to other phenomena where critical scaling is only observed in finite size systems and disappears in the thermodynamic limit

A simple novel device for air sampling by electrokinetic capture

© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Microbiome 3 (2015): 79, doi:10.1186/s40168-015-0141-2.A variety of different sampling devices are currently available to acquire air samples for the study of the microbiome of the air. All have a degree of technical complexity that limits deployment. Here, we evaluate the use of a novel device, which has no technical complexity and is easily deployable. An air-cleaning device powered by electrokinetic propulsion has been adapted to provide a universal method for collecting samples of the aerobiome. Plasma-induced charge in aerosol particles causes propulsion to and capture on a counter-electrode. The flow of ions creates net bulk airflow, with no moving parts. A device and electrode assembly have been re-designed from air-cleaning technology to provide an average air flow of 120 lpm. This compares favorably with current air sampling devices based on physical air pumping. Capture efficiency was determined by comparison with a 0.4 μm polycarbonate reference filter, using fluorescent latex particles in a controlled environment chamber. Performance was compared with the same reference filter method in field studies in three different environments. For 23 common fungal species by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), there was 100 % sensitivity and apparent specificity of 87 %, with the reference filter taken as “gold standard.” Further, bacterial analysis of 16S RNA by amplicon sequencing showed equivalent community structure captured by the electrokinetic device and the reference filter. Unlike other current air sampling methods, capture of particles is determined by charge and so is not controlled by particle mass. We analyzed particle sizes captured from air, without regard to specific analyte by atomic force microscopy: particles at least as low as 100 nM could be captured from ambient air. This work introduces a very simple plug-and-play device that can sample air at a high-volume flow rate with no moving parts and collect particles down to the sub-micron range. The performance of the device is substantially equivalent to capture by pumping through a filter for microbiome analysis by quantitative PCR and amplicon sequencing.This work was partly supported by Breakout Labs, a program of the Thiel Foundation, and partly from personal funds from Julian Gordon and Prasanthi Gandhi. This work was supported in part by the US Dept. of Energy under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357

An Experimental and Simulation Study of Early Flame Development in a Homogeneous-Charge Spark-Ignition Engine

An integrated experimental and Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) study is presented for homogeneous premixed combustion in a spark-ignition engine. The engine is a single-cylinder two-valve optical research engine with transparent liner and piston: the Transparent Combustion Chamber (TCC) engine. This is a relatively simple, open engine configuration that can be used for LES model development and validation by other research groups. Pressure-based combustion analysis, optical diagnostics and LES have been combined to generate new physical insight into the early stages of combustion. The emphasis has been on developing strategies for making quantitative comparisons between high-speed/high-resolution optical diagnostics and LES using common metrics for both the experiments and the simulations, and focusing on the important early flame development period. Results from two different LES turbulent combustion models are presented, using the same numerical methods and computational mesh. Both models yield Cycle-to-Cycle Variations (CCV) in combustion that are higher than what is observed in the experiments. The results reveal strengths and limitations of the experimental diagnostics and the LES models, and suggest directions for future diagnostic and simulation efforts. In particular, it has been observed that flame development between the times corresponding to the laminar-to-turbulent transition and 1% mass-burned fraction are especially important in establishing the subsequent combustion event for each cycle. This suggests a range of temporal and spatial scales over which future experimental and simulation efforts should focus

Resting-state Networks in Tinnitus: A Scoping Review

Chronic subjective tinnitus is the constant perception of a sound that has no physical source. Brain imaging studies show alterations in tinnitus patients’ resting-state networks (RSNs). This scoping review aims to provide an overview of resting-state fMRI studies in tinnitus, and to evaluate the evidence for changes in different RSNs. A total of 29 studies were included, 26 of which found alterations in networks such as the auditory network, default mode network, attention networks, and visual network; however, there is a lack of reproducibility in the field which can be attributed to the use of different regions of interest and analytical methods per study, and tinnitus heterogeneity. Future studies should focus on replication by using the same regions of interest in their analysis of resting-state data, and by controlling adequately for potential confounds. These efforts could potentially lead to the identification of a biomarker for tinnitus in the future

Growth and Characterization of MnBi2Te4 Magnetic Topological Insulator

We report successful growth of magnetic topological insulator (MTI) MnBi(2)Te(4)singlecrystalby solid state reaction route via self flux method. The phase formation of MnBi(2)Te(4)singlecrystalis strongly dependent on the heat treatment. MnBi(2)Te(4)is grown in various phases i. e., MnBi4Te7, MnBi6Te10 and MnTe as seen in powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) of crushed resultant crystal. The Rietveld analysis shows some impurity lines along with the main phase MnBi2Te4. Low temperature (10K) magneto-resistance (MR) in applied magnetic field of up to 6 Tesla exhibited - ve MR below 0.5 Tesla and +ve for higher fields. The studied MnBi2Te4, MTI crystal could be a possible candidate for Quantum Anomalous Hall (QAH) effect. Here we are reporting a newly discovered magnetic topological insulator MnBi(2)Te(4)having non-trivial symmetry as well as strong Spin-Orbit Coupling forQAH effect

Silicon carbide formation in reactive silicon-carbon multilayers

An alternative low thermal budget silicon carbide syntheses route is presented. The method is based on self-propagating high-temperature synthesis of binary silicon-carbon-based reactive multilayers. With this technique, it is possible to obtain cubic polycrystalline silicon carbide at relatively low annealing temperatures by a solid state reaction. The reaction starts above 600 °C. The transformation process proceeds in a four-step process. The reaction enthalpy was determined to be (-70 ± 4) kJ/mol