A Specific Prebiotic Mixture Added to Starting Infant Formula Has Long-Lasting Bifidogenic Effects123

There is some evidence that early colonization of the intestine affects the composition of the intestinal microbiota after weaning. In the present study, the effect of prebiotics administered from the first day of life on fecal counts of bifidobacteria and lactobacilli were studied during and after the administration of the prebiotics. In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, explorative study, 20 newborns of hepatitis C virus-infected mothers who decided not to breast feed due to their concerns regarding their plasma viral load were randomly assigned to either a formula with 8 g/L of a specific prebiotic mixture (short-chain galacto-oligosaccharides and long-chain fructo-oligosaccharides, ratio 9:1) or a formula containing the same amount of maltodextrin (placebo). Clinical examination including anthropometric measurements, microbiological analysis of fecal samples, and blood leukocyte population analysis were performed at birth and 3, 6, and 12 mo age. At the age of 12 mo, hepatitis B vaccine-specific IgG serum titers (Hepatitis B virus surface antibodies) were also measured. Prebiotic supplementation resulted in more fecal bifidobacteria (P < 0.0001) and lactobacilli (P = 0.0044) compared with the placebo group. These differences between the groups were maintained during the second half of the first year without any prebiotic supplementation. There was no influence of the different diets on anthropometric data or the measured immunological variables. The data from this small explorative study indicate that early colonization of the intestine might have long-lasting effects on the composition of the intestinal microbiota

III-V-on-silicon 2-mu m-wavelength-range wavelength demultiplexers with heterogeneously integrated InP-based type-II photodetectors

A

Restrictions on dilatonic brane-world models

We consider dilatonic brane-world models with a non-minimal coupling between a dilaton and usual matter on a brane. We demonstrate that variation of the fundamental constants on the brane due to such interaction leads to strong restrictions on parameters of models. In particular, the experimental bounds on variation of the fine structure constant rule out non-minimal dilatonic models with a Liouville-type coupling potential f(varphi) = exp (b varphi) where b is order of 1.Comment: MiKTeX2-LaTeX2e, 10 pages, minor changes, improved references, to appear in IJMP

Widely tunable 23 μm III-V-on-silicon Vernier lasers for broadband spectroscopic sensing

Heterogeneously integrating III-V materials on silicon photonic integrated circuits has emerged as a promising approach to make advanced laser sources for optical communication and sensing applications. Tunable semiconductor lasers operating in the 2-2.5 mu m range are of great interest for industrial and medical applications since many gases (e.g., CO2, CO, CH4) and biomolecules (such as blood glucose) have strong absorption features in this wavelength region. The development of integrated tunable laser sources in this wavelength range enables low-cost and miniature spectroscopic sensors. Here we report heterogeneously integrated widely tunable III-V-on-silicon Vernier lasers using two silicon microring resonators as the wavelength tuning components. The laser has a wavelength tuning range of more than 40 nm near 2.35 mu m. By combining two lasers with different distributed Bragg reflectors, a tuning range of more than 70 nm is achieved. Over the whole tuning range, the side-mode suppression ratio is higher than 35 dB. As a proof-of-principle, this III-V-on-silicon Vernier laser is used to measure the absorption lines of CO. The measurement results match very well with the high-resolution transmission molecular absorption (HITRAN) database and indicate that this laser is suitable for broadband spectroscopy. (C) 2018 Chinese Laser Pres