Calcium carbonate precipitation by different bacterial strains

Bacteria are capable of performing metabolic activities which thereby promote precipitation of calcium carbonate in the form of calcite. In this study, it is shown that microbial mineral precipitation was a result of metabolic activities of some specific microorganisms. Concrete microorganisms were used to improve the overall behavior of concrete. It was predicted that bacterial calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation occurs as a byproduct of common metabolic processes such as urea hydrolysis. In this study, ureolytic bacteria that were capable of precipitating calcium carbonate were isolated and further their urease activity was tested based on the production of urease. Scanning electron microscopy (SED) analysis revealed the direct involvement of these isolates in calcium carbonate precipitation. The production of calcite was further confirmed by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) analysis.Key words: Bacteria, urease activity, microbial mineral precipitation, scanning electron microscope-energydispersive x-ray, x-ray diffraction

Pattern of physical activity can influence its efficacy on muscle and bone health in middle-aged men and women

Purpose This study aimed at investigating whether association between physical activity, and bone density and muscle strength depends on daily activity pattern.Methods Loading dose of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was measured using accelerometer on 54 men (Mage = 54.1 years) and 59 women (Mage = 52.1 years). Pattern of MVPA was quantiied as number and length of MVPA bouts, and the length of break bouts between MVPA bouts. Knee extension torque (KET) and broadband ultrasound attenu-ation (BUA) of the calcaneus were also measured. Regression analysis was employed to examine the moderation efect of MVPA pattern.Results Loading dose had a larger efect on BUA (b = .002, p = .035) and KET (b = .004, p = .01) with the increase of median length of MVPA bout, but had a smaller efect on KET with the increase of maximal length of break bout (b = − .015, p = .024).Conclusions This study suggests that pattern of physical activity can inluence its eicacy on muscle and bone health

Ministers and Civil Servants Relations in India: an Evaluation

In a parliamentary form of government, like in India, there exist two types of executives i.e. political or elected and permanent executive. Political executive derives its power from people and enjoys the power by virtue of constitutional position, while permanent executive or civil servant is selected on merit basis and accumulate its power due to an administrative position and technical expertise. The system of a democratic government is based on the principle of popular sovereignty wherein the supreme rests in people or their elected representative. Political executive or Minister is assisted by a civil servant. A balanced relationship between them is essential for smooth and efficient functioning of government. Minister and civil servant act as two pillars of the parliamentary form of government and weakness of any one of them will adversely affect the performance of government. Theoretically political and permanent executives perform a different role in government but in practice, their work is often overlapping and difficult to differentiate it

Students’ Perceptions of Justice: Application of Sanctions, Guilt, and Responsibility in Campus Sexual Assault Cases

Despite growing attention to adjudication of campus sexual assault cases, little is known how students perceive “justice” for such cases. The present study examined whether victim, perpetrator, and assault characteristics influenced students’ perceptions of: whether a sanctionable violation occurred; the type of sanction to be applied; perceived severity of the sanction; proportion of guilt attributable to the victim and perpetrator; and level of responsibility of the victim and perpetrator. Fourteen factors pertaining to potential negative evaluation of rape victims were derived; thus, a non-factorial vignette survey design focusing only on each main effect was employed. 846 college students responded to one of four versions of a randomly distributed survey each containing eight vignettes that varied to represent all levels of the 14 factors. Students were not consistent in their application of sanctions or assignment of guilt or responsibility for the sexual assault vignettes, but rather were influenced in their ratings for 10 of the 14 factors. Students responded differentially to levels of the following factors: psychological impact on the victim, victim’s medical consequences, reason for the victim’s incapacitation leading to assault, consistency of victim’s and perpetrator’s accounts of the assault, sexual orientation of the victim, type of forced sex, number of perpetrators involved, fraternity membership of the perpetrator, gender of the perpetrator, and victim’s initial display of sexual interest in the perpetrator. Cases consistent with rape myths appear to influence students’ perceptions of justice. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for research and prevention programming

The Methods to Improve Quality of Service by Accounting Secure Parameters

A solution to the problem of ensuring quality of service, providing a greater number of services with higher efficiency taking into account network security is proposed. In this paper, experiments were conducted to analyze the effect of self-similarity and attacks on the quality of service parameters. Method of buffering and control of channel capacity and calculating of routing cost method in the network, which take into account the parameters of traffic multifractality and the probability of detecting attacks in telecommunications networks were proposed. The both proposed methods accounting the given restrictions on the delay time and the number of lost packets for every type quality of service traffic. During simulation the parameters of transmitted traffic (self-similarity, intensity) and the parameters of network (current channel load, node buffer size) were changed and the maximum allowable load of network was determined. The results of analysis show that occurrence of overload when transmitting traffic over a switched channel associated with multifractal traffic characteristics and presence of attack. It was shown that proposed methods can reduce the lost data and improve the efficiency of network resources.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 1 equation, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1904.0520

Chemical Short-Range Order in Selenide and Telluride Glasses

International audienc

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Defibrillator Use in Sports

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in young athletes is rare, with an estimated incidence ranging from 0.1 to 2 per 100,000 per athlete year. The creation of SCA registries can help provide accurate data regarding incidence, treatment, and outcomes and help implement primary or secondary prevention strategies that could change the course of these events. Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation are the most important determinants of survival and neurological prognosis in individuals who suffer from SCA. Compared with the general population, individuals with clinically silent cardiac disease who practice regular physical exercise are at increased risk of SCA events. While the implementation of national preparticipation screening has been largely debated, with no current consensus, the number of athletes who will be diagnosed with cardiac disease and have an indication for implantable defibrillator cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is unknown. Many victims of SCA do not have a previous cardiac diagnosis. Therefore, the appropriate use and availability of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public spaces is the crucial part of the integrated response to prevent these fatalities both for participating athletes and for spectators. Governments and sports institutions should invest and educate members of the public, security, and healthcare professionals in immediate initiation of CPR and early AED use. Smartphone apps could play an integral part to allow bystanders to alert the emergency services and CPR trained responders and locate and utilize the nearest AED to positively influence the outcomes by strengthening the chain of survival. This review aims to summarize the available evidence on sudden cardiac death prevention among young athletes and to provide some guidance on strategies that can be implemented by governments and on the novel tools that can help save these lives