331 research outputs found
Extensive Microbial Processing of Polysaccharides in the South Pacific Gyre via Selfish Uptake and Extracellular Hydrolysis
Primary productivity occurs throughout the deep euphotic zone of the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG), fueled largely by the regeneration of nutrients and thus recycling of organic matter. We investigated the heterotrophic capabilities of the SPGâs bacterial communities by examining their ability to process polysaccharides, an important component of marine organic matter. We focused on the initial step of organic matter degradation by measuring the activities of extracellular enzymes that hydrolyze six different polysaccharides to smaller sizes. This process can occur by two distinct mechanisms: âselfish uptake,â in which initial hydrolysis is coupled to transport of large polysaccharide fragments into the periplasmic space of bacteria, with little to no loss of hydrolysis products to the external environment, and âexternal hydrolysis,â in which low molecular weight (LMW) hydrolysis products are produced in the external environment. Given the oligotrophic nature of the SPG, we did not expect high enzymatic activity; however, we found that all six polysaccharides were hydrolyzed externally and taken up selfishly in the central SPG, observations that may be linked to a comparatively high abundance of diatoms at the depth and location sampled (75 m). At the edge of the gyre and close to the center of the gyre, four of six polysaccharides were externally hydrolyzed, and a lower fraction of the bacterial community showed selfish uptake. One polysaccharide (fucoidan) was selfishly taken up without measurable external hydrolysis at two stations. Additional incubations of central gyre water from depths of 1,250 and 2,800 m with laminarin (an abundant polysaccharide in the ocean) led to extreme growth of opportunistic bacteria (Alteromonas), as tracked by cell counts and next generation sequencing of the bacterial communities. These Alteromonas appear to concurrently selfishly take up laminarin and release LMW hydrolysis products. Overall, extracellular enzyme activities in the SPG were similar to activities in non-oligotrophic regions, and a considerable fraction of the community was capable of selfish uptake at all three stations. A diverse set of bacteria responded to and are potentially important for the recycling of organic matter in the SPG
Strong seasonal differences of bacterial polysaccharide utilization in the North Sea over an annual cycle
Marine heterotrophic bacteria contribute considerably to global carbon cycling, in part by utilizing phytoplankton-derived polysaccharides. The patterns and rates of two different polysaccharide utilization modes â extracellular hydrolysis and selfish uptake â have previously been found to change during spring phytoplankton bloom events. Here we investigated seasonal changes in bacterial utilization of three polysaccharides, laminarin, xylan and chondroitin sulfate. Strong seasonal differences were apparent in mode and speed of polysaccharide utilization, as well as in bacterial community compositions. Compared to the winter month of February, during the spring bloom in May, polysaccharide utilization was detected earlier in the incubations and a higher portion of all bacteria took up laminarin selfishly. Highest polysaccharide utilization was measured in June and September, mediated by bacterial communities that were significantly different from spring assemblages. Extensive selfish laminarin uptake, for example, was detectible within a few hours in June, while extracellular hydrolysis of chondroitin was dominant in September. In addition to the well-known Bacteroidota and Gammaproteobacteria clades, the numerically minor verrucomicrobial clade Pedosphaeraceae could be identified as a rapid laminarin utilizer. In summary, polysaccharide utilization proved highly variable over the seasons, both in mode and speed, and also by the bacterial clades involved
Asymptotics for the Fredholm Determinant of the Sine Kernel on a Union of Intervals
In the bulk scaling limit of the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble of Hermitian
matrices the probability that an interval of length contains no eigenvalues
is the Fredholm determinant of the sine kernel over
this interval. A formal asymptotic expansion for the determinant as tends
to infinity was obtained by Dyson. In this paper we replace a single interval
of length by where is a union of intervals and present a proof
of the asymptotics up to second order. The logarithmic derivative with respect
to of the determinant equals a constant (expressible in terms of
hyperelliptic integrals) times , plus a bounded oscillatory function of
(zero of , periodic if , and in general expressible in terms of the
solution of a Jacobi inversion problem), plus . Also determined are the
asymptotics of the trace of the resolvent operator, which is the ratio in the
same model of the probability that the set contains exactly one eigenvalue to
the probability that it contains none. The proofs use ideas from orthogonal
polynomial theory.Comment: 24 page
One-and-a-half quantum de Finetti theorems
We prove a new kind of quantum de Finetti theorem for representations of the
unitary group U(d). Consider a pure state that lies in the irreducible
representation U_{mu+nu} for Young diagrams mu and nu. U_{mu+nu} is contained
in the tensor product of U_mu and U_nu; let xi be the state obtained by tracing
out U_nu. We show that xi is close to a convex combination of states Uv, where
U is in U(d) and v is the highest weight vector in U_mu. When U_{mu+nu} is the
symmetric representation, this yields the conventional quantum de Finetti
theorem for symmetric states, and our method of proof gives near-optimal bounds
for the approximation of xi by a convex combination of product states. For the
class of symmetric Werner states, we give a second de Finetti-style theorem
(our 'half' theorem); the de Finetti-approximation in this case takes a
particularly simple form, involving only product states with a fixed spectrum.
Our proof uses purely group theoretic methods, and makes a link with the
shifted Schur functions. It also provides some useful examples, and gives some
insight into the structure of the set of convex combinations of product states.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, v4: minor additions (including figures),
published versio
Robustness of quantum Markov chains
If the conditional information of a classical probability distribution of
three random variables is zero, then it obeys a Markov chain condition. If the
conditional information is close to zero, then it is known that the distance
(minimum relative entropy) of the distribution to the nearest Markov chain
distribution is precisely the conditional information. We prove here that this
simple situation does not obtain for quantum conditional information. We show
that for tri-partite quantum states the quantum conditional information is
always a lower bound for the minimum relative entropy distance to a quantum
Markov chain state, but the distance can be much greater; indeed the two
quantities can be of different asymptotic order and may even differ by a
dimensional factor.Comment: 14 pages, no figures; not for the feeble-minde
Short-term changes in polysaccharide utilization mechanisms of marine bacterioplankton during a spring phytoplankton bloom
Spring phytoplankton blooms in temperate environments contribute disproportionately to global marine productivity. Bloom-derived organic matter, much of it occurring as polysaccharides, fuels biogeochemical cycles driven by interacting autotrophic and heterotrophic communities. We tracked changes in the mode of polysaccharide utilization by heterotrophic bacteria during the course of a diatom-dominated bloom in the German Bight, North Sea. Polysaccharides can be taken up in a âselfishâ mode, where initial hydrolysis is coupled to transport into the periplasm, such that little to no low-molecular weight (LMW) products are externally released to the environment. Alternatively, polysaccharides hydrolyzed by cell-surface attached or free extracellular enzymes (external hydrolysis) yield LMW products available to the wider bacterioplankton community. In the early bloom phase, selfish activity was accompanied by low extracellular hydrolysis rates of a few polysaccharides. As the bloom progressed, selfish uptake increased markedly, and external hydrolysis rates increased, but only for a limited range of substrates. The late bloom phase was characterized by high external hydrolysis rates of a broad range of polysaccharides and reduced selfish uptake of polysaccharides, except for laminarin. Substrate utilization mode is related both to substrate structural complexity and to the bloom-stage dependent composition of the heterotrophic bacterial community
Quantum state merging and negative information
We consider a quantum state shared between many distant locations, and define
a quantum information processing primitive, state merging, that optimally
merges the state into one location. As announced in [Horodecki, Oppenheim,
Winter, Nature 436, 673 (2005)], the optimal entanglement cost of this task is
the conditional entropy if classical communication is free. Since this quantity
can be negative, and the state merging rate measures partial quantum
information, we find that quantum information can be negative. The classical
communication rate also has a minimum rate: a certain quantum mutual
information. State merging enabled one to solve a number of open problems:
distributed quantum data compression, quantum coding with side information at
the decoder and sender, multi-party entanglement of assistance, and the
capacity of the quantum multiple access channel. It also provides an
operational proof of strong subadditivity. Here, we give precise definitions
and prove these results rigorously.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figure
PATHOGEN-SPECIFIC ANTIBODY PROFILES IN PATIENTS WITH SEVERE SYSTEMIC INFECTIONS
Infections are often caused by pathobionts, endogenous bacteria that belong to the microbiota. Trauma and surgical intervention can allow bacteria to overcome host defences, ultimately leading to sepsis if left untreated. One of the main defence strategies of the immune system is the production of highly specific antibodies. In the present proof-of-concept study, plasma antibodies against 9 major pathogens were measured in sepsis patients, as an example of severe systemic infections. The binding of plasma antibodies to bacterial extracellular proteins was quantified using a semi-automated immunoblot assay. Comparison of the pathogen-specific antibody levels before and after infection showed an increase in plasma IgG in 20 out of 37 tested patients. This host-directed approach extended the results of pathogen-oriented microbiological and PCR diagnostics: a specific antibody response to additional bacteria was frequently observed, indicating unrecognised poly-microbial invasion. This might explain some cases of failed, seemingly targeted antibiotic treatment
Pion photoproduction on the nucleon in the quark model
We present a detailed quark-model study of pion photoproduction within the
effective Lagrangian approach. Cross sections and single-polarization
observables are investigated for the four charge channels, , , , and .
Leaving the coupling strength to be a free parameter, we obtain a
reasonably consistent description of these four channels from threshold to the
first resonance region. Within this effective Lagrangian approach, strongly
constrainted by the quark model, we consider the issue of double-counting which
may occur if additional {\it t}-channel contributions are included.Comment: Revtex, 35 pages, 16 eps figures; version to appear on PR
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in âs = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fbâ1 of protonâproton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
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