Influence of Season, Occupancy Pattern, and Technology on Structure and Composition of Nitrifying and Denitrifying Bacterial Communities in Advanced Nitrogen-Removal Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems

Advanced onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) use biological nitrogen removal (BNR) to mitigate the threat that N-rich wastewater poses to coastal waterbodies and groundwater. These systems lower the N concentration of effluent via sequential microbial nitrification and denitrification. We used high-throughput sequencing to evaluate the structure and composition of nitrifying and denitrifying bacterial communities in advanced N-removal OWTS, targeting the genes encoding ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) and nitrous oxide reductase (nosZ) present in effluent from 44 advanced systems. We used QIIME2 and the phyloseq package in R to examine differences in taxonomy and alpha and beta diversity as a function of advanced OWTS technology, occupancy pattern (seasonal vs. year-round use), and season (June vs. September). Richness and Shannon’s diversity index for amoA were significantly influenced by season, whereas technology influenced nosZ diversity significantly. Season also had a strong influence on differences in beta diversity among amoA communities, and had less influence on nosZ communities, whereas technology had a stronger influence on nosZ communities. Nitrosospira and Nitrosomonas were the main genera of nitrifiers in advanced N-removal OWTS, and the predominant genera of denitrifiers included Zoogloea, Thauera, and Acidovorax. Differences in taxonomy for each gene generally mirrored those observed in diversity patterns, highlighting the possible importance of season and technology in shaping communities of amoA and nosZ, respectively. Knowledge gained from this study may be useful in understanding the connections between microbial communities and OWTS performance and may help manage systems in a way that maximizes N removal

Eight Weeks of Combined Exercise Training Induced Improvements in Insulin Sensitivity is Associated with Improvement in Aerobic Capacity, but not with Improvement in Strength.

A lifestyle compromised of predominantly sedentary behavior is a risk factor that promotes the development of metabolic syndrome. It has been demonstrated that individuals with blunted insulin sensitivity (IS) and metabolic flexibility (MF) tend to be more prone to develop the disease. An increase in physical activity is recommended in order to prevent cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus. PURPOSE: to determine whether healthy, sedentary, normoglycemic, Mexican American men without a family history of type 2 diabetes are able to improve IS and MF after participating in a combined (aerobic/resistance) exercise intervention. METHODS: Subjects (n=6; 21.83±0.8 years; BMI 28.92 ± 1.6 kg/m2), participated in 8 weeks of combined exercise training three times per week (35 minutes of aerobic training & 45 minutes of resistance training/session). Upper body 1 repetition maximum (1RM) was measured using the flat barbell bench press and lower body 1RM was measured using a back leg strength dynamometer. IS was assessed using the hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp (clamp). Insulin dose administered to each subject was set 80mU/m2/min. MF was assessed by determining change in RQ (ΔRQ) at the steady state of the clamp compared to RQ measured at baseline/resting. Participants were provided with standard diet 5 days before pre and post intervention testing in order to control for the effects of diet on insulin sensitivity. Body composition was measured using dual x-ray absorptiometry. RESULTS: IS improved significantly after the 8 weeks of combined exercise training (3.18±0.35 to 3.75±0.34 mg/kg EMBS/min, p=0.05). There was no significant improvement in MF (0.06±0.02 to 0.08±0.02 ∆RER, p=0.19). Body weight significantly increased (3.76%; 81.06±5.38 to 84.11±5.67 kg, p=0.01) with no change in fat mass and a trend to increase in fat free mas (2.8%; 55.92±2.77 to 57.5±2.38 kg, p=0.1). Upper body strength significantly increased (168.3±26.57 to 195±26.04 lb., p=0.001). Lower body strength increased (356.7±46.52 to 428.3±34.51 lb., p=0.02).VO2 max improved significantly (3.90±0.14 to 4.19±0.16 L/min, p=0.037). Improvement in IS was associated with an increase in VO2max (r=0.92, p=0.008) but not with the improvement in strength. Improvement in MF was significantly correlated with fasting glucose (r=-0.83, p=0.04), and an increase in lean mass (r=0.82, p=0.04). CONCLUSION: 8 weeks of combined exercise improves insulin sensitivity in healthy, sedentary, normoglycemic Hispanic men. Improvement in insulin sensitivity is associated with improvement in aerobic fitness but not gain in upper and lower body strength

Synthesis of a 12R-type hexagonal perovskite solid solution Sr3NdNb3-xTixO12-delta and the influence of acceptor doping on electrical properties

A solid solution forms for Sr3NdNb3−xTixO12−δ with approximate limits 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.06. The system crystallizes with a 12R-type hexagonal perovskite structure in the space group R[3 with combining macron], as determined by neutron diffraction and selected area electron diffraction. The electrical properties of the end members have been investigated by impedance spectroscopy in the temperature range 550–800 °C under various gas atmospheres and as a function of oxygen and water-vapour partial pressure. Proton transport dominates under wet oxidising conditions in the temperature range 550–700 °C, as confirmed by the H+/D+ isotope effect. Acceptor doping considerably enhances proton conductivity with a value of 3.3 × 10−6 S cm−1 for the bulk response of x = 0.06 at 700 °C in moistened air. The presence of a −¼ slope for both doped and undoped samples in the range 10−19 ≤ pO2 ≤ 10−8 atm at 900 °C indicates n-type transport under reducing conditions following the extrinsic model attributable to acceptor centres. The conductivity is essentially independent of pO2 at 600 °C under dry oxidising conditions, consistent with oxide-ion transport; a positive power-law dependence at higher temperature indicates extrinsic behaviour and a significant electron–hole contribution. The dielectric constant at RT of nominally stoichiometric Sr3NdNb3O12 is εr ∼ 37, with a moderately high quality factor of Q × f ∼ 16 400 GHz at fr ∼ 6.4 GHz. The temperature coefficient of resonant frequency of x = 0 is τf ∼ 12 ppm °C−1, which lowers to −3 ppm °C−1 for the Ti-doped phase x = 0.06

The Shape of Gravity in a Warped Deformed Conifold

We study the spectrum of the gravitational modes in Minkowski spacetime due to a 6-dimensional warped deformed conifold, i.e., a warped throat, in superstring theory. After identifying the zero mode as the usual 4D graviton, we present the KK spectrum as well as other excitation modes. Gluing the throat to the bulk (a realistic scenario), we see that the graviton has a rather uniform probability distribution everywhere while a KK mode is peaked in the throat, as expected. Due to the suppressed measure of the throat in the wave function normalization, we find that a KK mode's probability in the bulk can be comparable to that of the graviton mode. We also present the tunneling probabilities of a KK mode from the inflationary throat to the bulk and to another throat. Due to resonance effect, the latter may not be suppressed as natively expected. Implication of this property to reheating after brane inflation is discussed

Anomalous spectral weight in photoemission spectra of the hole doped Haldane chain Y2-xSrxBaNiO5

In this paper, we present photoemission experiments on the hole doped Haldane chain compound $Y_{2-x}Sr_xBaNiO_5$. By using the photon energy dependence of the photoemission cross section, we identified the symmetry of the first ionisation states (d type). Hole doping in this system leads to a significant increase in the spectral weight at the top of the valence band without any change in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. This behavior, not observed in other charge transfer oxides at low doping level, could result from the inhomogeneous character of the doped system and from a Ni 3d-O 2p hybridization enhancement due to the shortening of the relevant Ni-O distance in the localized hole-doped regions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Review on possible gravitational anomalies

This is an updated introductory review of 2 possible gravitational anomalies that has attracted part of the Scientific community: the Allais effect that occur during solar eclipses, and the Pioneer 10 spacecraft anomaly, experimented also by Pioneer 11 and Ulysses spacecrafts. It seems that, to date, no satisfactory conventional explanation exist to these phenomena, and this suggests that possible new physics will be needed to account for them. The main purpose of this review is to announce 3 other new measurements that will be carried on during the 2005 solar eclipses in Panama and Colombia (Apr. 8) and in Portugal (Oct.15).Comment: Published in 'Journal of Physics: Conferences Series of the American Institute of Physics'. Contribution for the VI Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics "Approaches to Quantum Gravity" (Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Nov. 21-27, 2004). Updates to this information will be posted in http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/~xavier.amador/anomalies.htm

ESTIMATION OF PARAMETERS AND SELECTION OF MODELS APPLIED IN ADSORPTION

The modeling of complex phenomena such as adsorption often requires the determination of parameters that cannot be directly measured and, therefore, must be estimated. An important point is related to the analysis of the inverse problem as a method of estimating parameters and selecting models. In view of this, this work aims to apply the Monte Carlo method via Markov Chains (MCMC) as a technique for solving the inverse problem of estimating fixed-bed adsorption parameters using analytical models proposed in the literature. In addition, this work aims to select the best model through the statistical metrics Akaike, corrected Akaike and Bayesian Information Criterion. The use of the Bayesian approach allowed the analysis of the convergence of the chains, as well as selected the best model to represent the experimental data obtained from the literature.