Ultrasonic Atomization of pMDI Wood Resin

A novel, patent-pending approach to the application of wood resins based on an ultrasonic principle was developed in this study. Liquid polymeric methane diphenyl-diisocyanate (pMDI) resin was successfully atomized using a bench-scale 25 kHz ultrasonic atomizer. The optimal average sizes of the resin droplets generated at a flow rate of 0.7 mL/min and power input of 5.0 J/s were about 90 μm. In addition to fewer fine droplets than that produced by conventional spinning-disk atomizers, the droplets of pMDI resin produced by the ultrasonic atomizer had a more uniform droplet size distribution. These results indicate the potential advantages of implementing ultrasonic atomization in oriented strandboard production, including elimination of the hazardous fraction of fine resin droplets and potential production cost savings from improved resin efficiency. The ultrasonic atomization of wood resins appears to be a promising alternative to the spinning-disk atomizer

Przebaczenie i pojednanie pomiędzy Polakami i Niemcami jako dar i zadanie. W 50 lat po wymianie listów biskupów polskich i niemieckich

The article shows the importance of “The Message of the Polish bishops to their German brothers in Christ's pastoral office” (November, 18 1965) in the history of Polish-German reconciliation. This Message contained the famed phrase “we forgive and ask for forgiveness” directed, at the conclusion of Vatican II, to the German bishops by representatives of the people, who were the victim of World War II. This phrase, over the past fifty years,  had become a source of some confusions first, but, eventually,  it brought to the peoples and to the believers of Churches living in Poland and Germany blessed fruits, which were the foundations for further Polish-German relations. It is therefore not strange that this Message of Polish bishops is now considered by many historians as the most important document of the postwar period.The article, in  its four parts, reveals religious themes, efforts and activities of Polish bishops which aimed at deepening the sense of forgiveness and reconciliation in the midst of shaping the attitudes of the faithful living in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. The decisive event in this respect - apart from Vatican II – was the celebration of 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland, celebrated at Jasna Gora in Czestochowa on 3th May 1966,  under the leadership of the Primate of Poland Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski. Further sections of the article show a long and laborious process of ripening of the forgiveness in the dimension of community and society. This process is illustrated by other - this time common - documents Polish and German bishops issued on the occasion of the 30th (1995) and 40th anniversary (2005) of first “Message”, and recently culminated with a solemn celebration of Polish and German bishops in Czestochowa, on November, 22 2015 and completed by the first joint Message of Polish and German Presidents. The process of rapprochement, dialogue and reconciliation, which began with a collective act of forgiveness has led to far-reaching political changes, lasting peace in Poland and much of Europe. Presented in the article's Messages and their impact on Polish and German societies clearly show that there is no peace without justice, but – as well –  there is no justice without forgiveness.Artykuł ukazuje rolę, jaką w dziejach pojednania polsko-niemieckiego odegrało „Orędzie biskupów Polski do ich niemieckich braci w Chrystusowym urzędzie”, z 18 listopada 1965 roku. Zawarte w nim sformułowanie „przebaczamy i prosimy o przebaczenie” skierowane  na zakończenie II Soboru Watykańskiego do biskupów niemieckich przez przedstawicieli narodu, który był ofiarą II wojny światowej, w ciągu minionych 50 lat stało się najpierw źródłem nieporozumień, ale ostatecznie przyniosło narodom i Kościołowi żyjącemu w Polsce oraz Niemczech błogosławione owoce, które stały się fundamentem dalszych polsko-niemieckich relacji. Nie jest więc rzeczą dziwną, że wielu historyków to właśnie orędzie biskupów Polski  uznało za najważniejszy dokument okresu powojennego.Artykuł w czterech punktach ukazuje religijne motywy, wysiłki i działania, głównie biskupów Polski, zmierzające do pogłębienia sensu przebaczenia i kształtowania postawy pojednania pośród rzeszy wiernych żyjących w Kościele katolickim w Polsce. Decydujące znaczenie miały w tym względzie – obok Soboru – obchody 1000-lecia Chrztu Polski, celebrowane na Jasnej Górze w Częstochowie 3 maja 1966 roku, pod przewodnictwem Prymasa Polski Stefana kard. Wyszyńskiego. Dalsze fragmenty artykułu ukazują długotrwały i mozolny proces dojrzewania wspólnotowego i społecznego wymiaru przebaczenia. Proces ten ilustruje kolejne, tym razem wspólne dokumenty biskupów Polski i Niemiec z okazji 30-lecia (1995) i 40-lecia (2005), uwieńczone uroczystą celebracją biskupów Polski i Niemiec w Częstochowie 22 listopada 2015 roku, dopełnione pierwszym wspólnym przesłaniem Prezydentów Polski i Niemiec. Proces zbliżenia, dialogu i pojednania, który rozpoczął się zbiorowym aktem przebaczenia, doprowadził do daleko idących zmian ustrojowych, długotrwałego pokoju w Polsce i dużej części Europy. Nie ma bowiem pokoju bez sprawiedliwości, ale nie ma też sprawiedliwości bez przebaczenia

Small impact cratering processes produce distinctive charcoal assemblages

The frequency of crater-producing asteroid impacts on Earth is not known. Of the predicted Holocene asteroid impact craters of <200 m diameter, only ~30% have been located. Until now there has been no way to distinguish them from “normal” terrestrial structures unless pieces of iron meteorites were found nearby. We show that the reflective properties of charcoal found in the proximal ejecta of small impact craters are distinct from those produced by wildfires. Impact-produced charcoals and wildfire charcoals must derive from different heating regimes. We suggest that charcoal with specific reflective properties may help to recognize the meteoritic origin of small craters.Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant ImpChar, agreement no. 749157; the 2016 Barringer Family Fund for Meteorite Impact Research (Arizona, USA); National Science Centre Poland grants 2020/39/D/ST10/02675 and 2013/09/B/ST10/01666

Low-Level Resource Partitioning Supports Coexistence Among Functionally Redundant Bacteria During Successional Dynamics

Members of microbial communities can substantially overlap in substrate use. However, what enables functionally redundant microorganisms to coassemble or even stably coexist remains poorly understood. Here, we show that during unstable successional dynamics on complex, natural organic matter, functionally redundant bacteria can coexist by partitioning low-concentration substrates even though they compete for one simple, dominant substrate. We allowed ocean microbial communities to self-assemble on leachates of the brown seaweed Fucus vesiculosus and then analyzed the competition among 10 taxonomically diverse isolates representing two distinct stages of the succession. All, but two isolates, exhibited an average of 90% ± 6% pairwise overlap in resource use, and functional redundancy of isolates from the same assembly stage was higher than that from between assembly stages, leading us to construct a simpler four-isolate community with two isolates from each of the early and late stages. We found that, although the short-term dynamics of the four-isolate communities in F. vesiculosus leachate was dependent on initial isolate ratios, in the long term, the four isolates stably coexist in F. vesiculosus leachate, albeit with some strains at low abundance. We therefore explored the potential for nonredundant substrate use by genomic content analysis and RNA expression patterns. This analysis revealed that the four isolates mainly differed in peripheral metabolic pathways, such as the ability to degrade pyrimidine, leucine, and tyrosine, as well as aromatic substrates. These results highlight the importance of fine-scale differences in metabolic strategies for supporting the frequently observed coexistence of large numbers of rare organisms in natural microbiomes

Electrical switching of a chiral lasing from polariton condensate in a Rashba-Dresselhaus regime

Efficient optical classical and quantum information processing imposes on light novel requirements: chirality with low threshold non-linearities. In this work we demonstrate a chiral lasing from an optical modes due to emerging photonic Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (SOC). For this purpose we developed a new electrically tunable device based on an optical cavity filled with birefringent liquid crystal (LC) and perovskite crystals. Our novel method for the growth of single crystals of CsPbBr$_3$ inorganic perovskite in polymer templates allows us to reach a strong light-matter coupling regime between perovskite excitons and cavity modes, and induce polariton condensation. The sensitivity of the LC to external electric fields lets us to tune the condensate energy in situ and induce synthetic SOC. This shapes the condensate between a single linearly polarized or two circularly polarized separated in momentum, emitting coherent light. The difference in the condensation thresholds between the two SOC regimes can be used to switch on and off the chiral condensate emission with a voltage.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

MiDAS 4: A global catalogue of full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences and taxonomy for studies of bacterial communities in wastewater treatment plants

Microbial communities are responsible for biological wastewater treatment, but our knowledge of their diversity and function is still poor. Here, we sequence more than 5 million high-quality, full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences from 740 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) across the world and use the sequences to construct the ‘MiDAS 4’ database. MiDAS 4 is an amplicon sequence variant resolved, full-length 16S rRNA gene reference database with a comprehensive taxonomy from domain to species level for all sequences. We use an independent dataset (269 WWTPs) to show that MiDAS 4, compared to commonly used universal reference databases, provides a better coverage for WWTP bacteria and an improved rate of genus and species level classification. Taking advantage of MiDAS 4, we carry out an amplicon-based, global-scale microbial community profiling of activated sludge plants using two common sets of primers targeting regions of the 16S rRNA gene, revealing how environmental conditions and biogeography shape the activated sludge microbiota. We also identify core and conditionally rare or abundant taxa, encompassing 966 genera and 1530 species that represent approximately 80% and 50% of the accumulated read abundance, respectively. Finally, we show that for well-studied functional guilds, such as nitrifiers or polyphosphate-accumulating organisms, the same genera are prevalent worldwide, with only a few abundant species in each genus