151 research outputs found
Coupled virus - bacteria interactions and ecosystem function in an engineered microbial system
Viruses are thought to control bacterial abundance, affect community composition and influence ecosystem function in natural environments. Yet their dynamics have seldom been studied in engineered systems, or indeed in any system, for long periods of time. We measured virus abundance in a full-scale activated sludge plant every week for two years. Total bacteria and ammonia oxidising bacteria (AOB) abundances, bacterial community profiles, and a suite of environmental and operational parameters were also monitored. Mixed liquor virus abundance fluctuated over an order of magnitude (3.18 × 108 – 3.41 × 109 virus’s mL-1) and that variation was statistically significantly associated with total bacterial and AOB abundance, community composition, and effluent concentrations of COD and NH4+- N and thus system function. This suggests viruses play a far more important role in the dynamics of activated sludge systems than previously realised and could be one of the key factors controlling bacterial abundance, community structure and functional stability and may cause reactors to fail. These finding are based on statistical associations, not mechanistic models. Nevertheless, viral associations with abiotic factors, such as pH, make physical sense giving credence to these findings and highlighting the role that physical factors play in virus ecology. Further work is needed to identify and quantify specific bacteriophage and their hosts to enable us to develop mechanistic models of the ecology of viruses in wastewater treatment systems. However, since we have shown that viruses can be related to effluent quality and virus quantification is simple and cheap, practitioners would probably benefit from quantifying viruses now
Genetic Homogeneity of the Invasive Lionfish Across the Northwestern Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico Based On Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms
Despite the devastating impact of the lionfish (Pterois volitans) invasion on NW Atlantic ecosystems, little genetic information about the invasion process is available. We applied Genotyping by Sequencing techniques to identify 1,220 single nucleotide polymorphic sites (SNPs) from 162 lionfish samples collected between 2013 and 2015 from two areas chronologically identified as the first and last invaded areas in US waters: the east coast of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. We used population genomic analyses, including phylogenetic reconstruction, Bayesian clustering, genetic distances, Discriminant Analyses of Principal Components, and coalescence simulations for detection of outlier SNPs, to understand genetic trends relevant to the lionfish’s long-term persistence. We found no significant differences in genetic structure or diversity between the two areas (FST p-values \u3e 0.01, and t-test p-values \u3e 0.05). In fact, our genomic analyses showed genetic homogeneity, with enough gene flow between the east coast of Florida and Gulf of Mexico to erase previous signals of genetic divergence detected between these areas, secondary spreading, and bottlenecks in the Gulf of Mexico. These findings suggest rapid genetic changes over space and time during the invasion, resulting in one panmictic population with no signs of divergence between areas due to local adaptation
Quantization and Compressive Sensing
Quantization is an essential step in digitizing signals, and, therefore, an
indispensable component of any modern acquisition system. This book chapter
explores the interaction of quantization and compressive sensing and examines
practical quantization strategies for compressive acquisition systems.
Specifically, we first provide a brief overview of quantization and examine
fundamental performance bounds applicable to any quantization approach. Next,
we consider several forms of scalar quantizers, namely uniform, non-uniform,
and 1-bit. We provide performance bounds and fundamental analysis, as well as
practical quantizer designs and reconstruction algorithms that account for
quantization. Furthermore, we provide an overview of Sigma-Delta
() quantization in the compressed sensing context, and also
discuss implementation issues, recovery algorithms and performance bounds. As
we demonstrate, proper accounting for quantization and careful quantizer design
has significant impact in the performance of a compressive acquisition system.Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures, to appear in Springer book "Compressed Sensing
and Its Applications", 201
Study of Hadronic Five-Body Decays of Charmed Mesons
We study the decay of D+ and Ds+ mesons into charged five body final states,
and report the discovery of the decay mode D+ -> K+K-Pi+Pi+Pi-, as well as
measurements of the decay modes D+ -> K-Pi+Pi+Pi+Pi-, Ds+ -> K+K-Pi+Pi+Pi-, Ds+
-> PhiPi+Pi+Pi- and D+/Ds+ -> Pi+Pi+Pi+Pi-Pi-. An analysis of the resonant
substructure is also included, with evidence suggesting that both decays
proceed primarily through an a1 vector resonance.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Study of the D^0 \to pi^-pi^+pi^-pi^+ decay
Using data from the FOCUS (E831) experiment at Fermilab, we present new
measurements for the Cabibbo-suppressed decay mode . We measure the branching ratio .
An amplitude analysis has been performed, a first for this channel, in order to
determine the resonant substructure of this decay mode. The dominant component
is the decay , accounting for 60% of the decay rate.
The second most dominant contribution comes from the decay , with a fraction of 25%. We also study the
line shape and resonant substructure. Using the helicity formalism for the
angular distribution of the decay , we measure
a longitudinal polarization of %.Comment: 38 pages, 8 figures. accepted for publication in Physical Review
Evidence for a narrow dip structure at 1.9 GeV/c in diffractive photoproduction
A narrow dip structure has been observed at 1.9 GeV/c in a study of
diffractive photoproduction of the final state performed by the
Fermilab experiment E687.Comment: The data of Figure 6 can be obtained by downloading the raw data file
e687_6pi.txt. v5 (2nov2018): added Fig. 7, the 6 pion energy distribution as
requested by a reade
Charm System Tests of CPT and Lorentz Invariance with FOCUS
We have performed a search for CPT violation in neutral charm meson
oscillations. While flavor mixing in the charm sector is predicted to be small
by the Standard Model, it is still possible to investigate CPT violation
through a study of the proper time dependence of a CPT asymmetry in right-sign
decay rates for and \d0b\to K^+\pi^-. This asymmetry is
related to the CPT violating complex parameter and the mixing parameters
and : . Our 95% confidence
level limit is . Within the
framework of the Standard Model Extension incorporating general CPT violation,
we also find 95% confidence level limits for the expressions involving
coefficients of Lorentz violation of GeV, GeV, and GeV,
where is the factor which incorporates mixing parameters ,
and the doubly Cabibbo suppressed to Cabibbo favored relative strong phase
.Comment: 12 pages 5 figure
Primordial Nucleosynthesis for the New Cosmology: Determining Uncertainties and Examining Concordance
Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have
a long history together in the standard cosmology. The general concordance
between the predicted and observed light element abundances provides a direct
probe of the universal baryon density. Recent CMB anisotropy measurements,
particularly the observations performed by the WMAP satellite, examine this
concordance by independently measuring the cosmic baryon density. Key to this
test of concordance is a quantitative understanding of the uncertainties in the
BBN light element abundance predictions. These uncertainties are dominated by
systematic errors in nuclear cross sections. We critically analyze the cross
section data, producing representations that describe this data and its
uncertainties, taking into account the correlations among data, and explicitly
treating the systematic errors between data sets. Using these updated nuclear
inputs, we compute the new BBN abundance predictions, and quantitatively
examine their concordance with observations. Depending on what deuterium
observations are adopted, one gets the following constraints on the baryon
density: OmegaBh^2=0.0229\pm0.0013 or OmegaBh^2 = 0.0216^{+0.0020}_{-0.0021} at
68% confidence, fixing N_{\nu,eff}=3.0. Concerns over systematics in helium and
lithium observations limit the confidence constraints based on this data
provide. With new nuclear cross section data, light element abundance
observations and the ever increasing resolution of the CMB anisotropy, tighter
constraints can be placed on nuclear and particle astrophysics. ABRIDGEDComment: 54 pages, 20 figures, 5 tables v2: reflects PRD version minor changes
to text and reference
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