Nitrous oxide emission in an aerobic granulation sequencing batch airlift reactor at ambient temperatures

This study aims to investigate the nitrous oxide (N2O) emission in an aerobic granulation sequencing batch airlift reactor (SBAR) and the associated microbial community of aerobic granular sludge at ambient temperature (18±3)°C. After 48 days of operation, 1-2mm granules were obtained and excellent chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonium (NH4+-N) removal efficiencies were stably achieved. N2O concentration in the off gas was maximal at the beginning of the aerobic period and stabilized at a lower concentration after an initial peak. (0.60±0.17, n=3) % of the total nitrogen load to the SBAR was emitted as N2O. A dramatic change in the microbial community structure was noted between the initial seed sludge and the final mature aerobic granular sludge. Nitrosospira was identified to be the dominant ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) which was attributed as the dominant source of N2O production in aerobic granular sludge by analysis of 16S rDNA sequences. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

The Clinical Utility of SUDOSCAN in Chronic Kidney Disease in Chinese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

published_or_final_versio

Ocean temperature and salinity components of the Madden-Julian oscillation observed by Argo floats

New diagnostics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) cycle in ocean temperature and, for the first time, salinity are presented. The MJO composites are based on 4 years of gridded Argo float data from 2003 to 2006, and extend from the surface to 1,400 m depth in the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. The MJO surface salinity anomalies are consistent with precipitation minus evaporation fluxes in the Indian Ocean, and with anomalous zonal advection in the Pacific. The Argo sea surface temperature and thermocline depth anomalies are consistent with previous studies using other data sets. The near-surface density changes due to salinity are comparable to, and partially offset, those due to temperature, emphasising the importance of including salinity as well as temperature changes in mixed-layer modelling of tropical intraseasonal processes. The MJO-forced equatorial Kelvin wave that propagates along the thermocline in the Pacific extends down into the deep ocean, to at least 1,400 m. Coherent, statistically significant, MJO temperature and salinity anomalies are also present in the deep Indian Ocean

Efficiency enhancement of axial junction InP single nanowire solar cells by dielectric coating

In this work we demonstrate single axial p-i-n junction InP nanowire (NW) solar cells grown by selective-area metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (SA-MOVPE) technique. A power conversion efficiency of up to 6.5% was realized in the single NW solar cell (horizontally lying on substrate) without any surface passivation. Electron beam induced current (EBIC) and photocurrent mapping were performed to investigate the electrical properties of the NW solar cells and their influence on device performance, which are essential for an in-depth understanding of the design requirements for NW solar cells. A further conformal SiNx layer was deposited on the single NW solar cell devices by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Overall efficiency improvement has been obtained in the SiNx-coated devices with a remarkable up to 62% increase to a peak efficiency of 10.5%, which to our knowledge is the highest efficiency reported for horizontal single NW solar cells. This has been attributed to an enhanced optical antenna effect and effective surface passivation due to SiNx coating, as respectively confirmed by numerical simulation and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements. Our work demonstrates that dielectric coating is a promising simple approach to achieve high performance III–V NW solar cells

A Simple and Effective Method for Construction of Escherichia coli Strains Proficient for Genome Engineering

Multiplex genome engineering is a standalone recombineering tool for large-scale programming and accelerated evolution of cells. However, this advanced genome engineering technique has been limited to use in selected bacterial strains. We developed a simple and effective strain-independent method for effective genome engineering in Escherichia coli. The method involves introducing a suicide plasmid carrying the l Red recombination system into the mutS gene. The suicide plasmid can be excised from the chromosome via selection in the absence of antibiotics, thus allowing transient inactivation of the mismatch repair system during genome engineering. In addition, we developed another suicide plasmid that enables integration of large DNA fragments into the lacZ genomic locus. These features enable this system to be applied in the exploitation of the benefits of genome engineering in synthetic biology, as well as the metabolic engineering of different strains of E. coli.open7

Measurement of the Branching Fraction of J/psi --> pi+ pi- pi0

Using 58 million J/psi and 14 million psi' decays obtained by the BESII experiment, the branching fraction of J/psi --> pi+ pi- pi0 is determined. The result is (2.10+/-0.12)X10^{-2}, which is significantly higher than previous measurements.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, RevTex

First observation of psi(2S)-->K_S K_L

The decay psi(2S)-->K_S K_L is observed for the first time using psi(2S) data collected with the Beijing Spectrometer (BESII) at the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC); the branching ratio is determined to be B(psi(2S)-->K_S K_L) = (5.24\pm 0.47 \pm 0.48)\times 10^{-5}. Compared with J/psi-->K_S K_L, the psi(2S) branching ratio is enhanced relative to the prediction of the perturbative QCD ``12%'' rule. The result, together with the branching ratios of psi(2S) decays to other pseudoscalar meson pairs (\pi^+\pi^- and K^+K^-), is used to investigate the relative phase between the three-gluon and the one-photon annihilation amplitudes of psi(2S) decays.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let