Microbial communities in bees, pollen and honey from Slovakia

As the honey-bee gastrointestinal tract microflora and pollen are the primary sources for the honey microbial community, the aim of this work was to study and characterize the microbial transit among them. Therefore, an exhaustive microbial analysis of honey, adult honey-bee gastrointestinal tract, and pollen from different Slovakian regions and different seasons, was conducted. Microbial screening revealed that the primary sources of microbial community present in Slovakian honey are pollen and the honey-bees’ digestive tract microflora, containing microorganisms normally present in dust, air and flowers. We found that the digestive tract of Slovakian adult honey-bees is highly populated by anaerobic, rather than aerobic bacteria, where coliforms, enterococci, staphylococci, Bacillus sp., Pseudomonas sp., microscopic fungi and yeast were found. Interestingly, statistical differences were found between the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract of summer and winter bees. Pollen revealed the presence of mesophil anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms, coliforms and microscopic fungi. Among these, the most representative genera were Alternaria, Cladosporium and Penicillium . In honey the counts of total anaerobic and total aerobic bacteria, that of coliforms, enterococci, bacilli, microscopic fungi and yeasts were monitored. Most frequently microscopic fungi belonging to genera Penicillium, Cladosporium and Alternaria were found

Integrated Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Modeling of 3D e-Cubes Structures

The complex silicon systems formed by the several specialized devices like SOC, RF devices, power devices, MEMS wafers are fabricated in dedicated technologies. If the designer attempts to integrate them into the one big multifunctional system, he meets the new, yet unexplored fields for the multidisciplinary, mutually dependent thermal, electrical, EM and mechanical parameters modeling. This article attempts to clarify, and presents how to simplify this problem

The SUCIMA project: A status report on high granularity dosimetry and proton beam monitoring

The SUCIMA collaboration has been developing instruments and methods for real-time, high granularity imaging of extended electron sources. In particular, dosimetry of intravascular brachytherapy beta sources has been intensively studied, together with monitoring of hadrontherapy beams by imaging of secondary electrons emitted by a non-disruptive target. The paper reports the latest results oil absolute dosimetry with a large-area silicon strip detectors and on beam monitoring with a hybrid pad sensor

Silicon ultra fast cameras for electron and gamma sources in medical applications: a progress report

SUCIMA (Silicon Ultra fast Cameras for electron and gamma sources In Medical Applications) is a project approved by the European Commission within the Fifth Framework Programme, with the primary goal of developing a real time dosimeter based on direct detection of ionising particles in a position sensitive Silicon sensor. The main applications of this device are imaging of intravascular brachytherapy radioactive sources with-activities up to 3 GBq and real time monitoring of hadrontherapy beams. In order to perform a feasibility study, during the first two years a real time dosimeter has been engineered using Silicon microstrip detectors read out by an integrating dead-timeless front-end electronics. The prototypes have been qualified as relative dosimeter with respect to certified secondary standards; moreover, further measurements are on going in order to investigate the possibility to use the sensors as absolute dosimeters. Since the final device is supposed to provide a two dimensional image, two different Monolithic Active Pixel dosimeters have been designed and produced by the collaboration based on CMOS and Silicon On Insulator technologies. The main features of the two sensors are presented in this paper

The SUCIMA project: A status report on high granularity dosimetry and proton beam monitoring

LEPSIThe SUCIMA collaboration has been developing instruments and methods for real-time, high granularity imaging of extended electron sources. In particular, dosimetry of intravascular brachytherapy β sources has been intensively studied, together with monitoring of hadrontherapy beams by imaging of secondary electrons emitted by a non-disruptive target. The paper reports the latest results on absolute dosimetry with a large-area silicon strip detectors and on beam monitoring with a hybrid pad sensor