Biofilm formation behaviour of marine filamentous cyanobacterial strains in controlled hydrodynamic conditions

Marine biofouling has severe economic impacts and cyanobacteria play a significant role as early surface colonizers. Despite this fact, cyanobacterial biofilm formation studies in controlled hydrodynamic conditions are scarce. In this work, computational fluid dynamics was used to determine the shear rate field on coupons that were placed inside the wells of agitated 12-well microtiter plates. Biofilm formation by three different cyanobacterial strains was assessed at two different shear rates (4 and 40 s-1 ) which can be found in natural ecosystems and using different surfaces (glass and perspex). Biofilm formation was higher under low shear conditions, and differences obtained between surfaces were not always statistically significant. The hydrodynamic effect was more noticeable during the biofilm maturation phase rather than during initial cell adhesion and optical coherence tomography showed that different shear rates can affect biofilm architecture. This study is particularly relevant given the cosmopolitan distribution of these cyanobacterial strains and the biofouling potential of these organisms.This work was financially supported by project UID/EQU/ 00511/2019 – Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy – LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and by the CVMAR+i – Industrial Innovation and Marine Biotechnology Valorisation, funded by INTERREG V A Espanha Portugal (POCTEP) [0302_CVMAR_I_1_P]. The authors also acknowledge support from the EU COST Actions iPROMEDAI (TD1305) and ENBA (CA15216), and M.J.R. acknowledges a PhD grant from FCT (SFRH/BD/140080/2018)

New insights on human T cell development by quantitative T cell receptor gene rearrangement studies and gene expression profiling

To gain more insight into initiation and regulation of T cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangement during human T cell development, we analyzed TCR gene rearrangements by quantitative PCR analysis in nine consecutive T cell developmental stages, including CD34+ lin− cord blood cells as a reference. The same stages were used for gene expression profiling using DNA microarrays. We show that TCR loci rearrange in a highly ordered way (TCRD-TCRG-TCRB-TCRA) and that the initiating Dδ2-Dδ3 rearrangement occurs at the most immature CD34+CD38−CD1a− stage. TCRB rearrangement starts at the CD34+CD38+CD1a− stage and complete in-frame TCRB rearrangements were first detected in the immature single positive stage. TCRB rearrangement data together with the PTCRA (pTα) expression pattern show that human TCRβ-selection occurs at the CD34+CD38+CD1a+ stage. By combining the TCR rearrangement data with gene expression data, we identified candidate factors for the initiation/regulation of TCR recombination. Our data demonstrate that a number of key events occur earlier than assumed previously; therefore, human T cell development is much more similar to murine T cell development than reported before

Density Waves in Layered Systems with Fermionic Polar Molecules

A layered system of two-dimensional planes containing fermionic polar molecules can potentially realize a number of exotic quantum many-body states. Among the predictions, are density-wave instabilities driven by the anisotropic part of the dipole-dipole interaction in a single layer. However, in typical multilayer setups it is reasonable to expect that the onset and properties of a density-wave are modified by adjacent layers. Here we show that this is indeed the case. For multiple layers the critical strength for the density-wave instability decreases with the number of layers. The effect depends on density and is more pronounced in the low density regime. The lowest solution of the instability corresponds to the density waves in the different layers being in-phase, whereas higher solutions have one or several adjancet layers that are out of phase. The parameter regime needed to explore this instability is within reach of current experiments.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Final version in EPJD, EuroQUAM special issue "Cold Quantum Matter - Achievements and Prospects

Exabyte helical scan devices at Fermilab

Exabyte 8mm helical scan storage devices are in use at Fermilab in a number of applications. These devices have the functionality of magnetic tape, but use media which is much more economical and much more dense than conventional 9 track tape. 6 refs., 3 figs

More Bubbling Solutions

In this note we construct families of asymptotically flat, smooth, horizonless solutions with a large number of non-trivial two-cycles (bubbles) of N=1 five-dimensional supergravity with an arbitrary number of vector multiplets, which may or may not have the charges of a macroscopic black hole and which contain the known bubbling solutions as a sub-family. We do this by lifting various multi-center BPS states of type IIA compactified on Calabi-Yau three-folds and taking the decompactification (M-theory) limit. We also analyse various properties of these solutions, including the conserved charges, the shape, especially the (absence of) throat and closed timelike curves, and relate them to the various properties of the four-dimensional BPS states. We finish by briefly commenting on their degeneracies and their possible relations to the fuzzball proposal of Mathur et al.Comment: 36 pages, Latex; JHEP version, one appendix added, references adde

Decision support system for selecting the rootstock, irrigation regime and nitrogen fertilization in winemaking vineyards: WANUGRAPE4.0

We aim to develop and transfer to the wine sector a decision support system (DSS) in the frame of WANEGRAPE4.0 project that, integrated into a geographic information system, helps wine growers in i) selecting the most suitable rootstock given some agroecological conditions and oenological objectives; and ii) managing irrigation and nitrogen fertilization in the most suitable way for the selected rootstock and agroecological conditions. The following goals have been achieved. First, the modular structure and information flow of the DSS has been defined. Second, the main algorithms of the water balance module (DSS core part) have been formulated and the module coded in a spreadsheet. Third, this water balance module has been tested with data from field experiments in several regions of Spain. Fourth, the relationships between grapevine water status and production and harvest quality variables have been established, revealing an always-significant effects of the decrease in water stress on vegetative development, yield, and grape composition. Fifth, the nitrogen fertilizer effects on vine performance has been assessed. Sixth, the effects rootstocks have on 5 parameters of vine production and grape quality for winemaking have been established too by doing another meta-analysis of rootstock trials. Seventh, a rootstock selection module has been defined. The WANUGRAPE4.0 project goes on with the integration of all its modules, their coding in a World Wide Web language and their publication on an Internet portal

Development and clinical evaluation of a 3-step modified manipulation protocol for MRI-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound of uterine fibroids

__Objectives:__ The clinical applicability of magnetic resonance image−guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MR-HIFU) treatment of uterine fibroids is often limited due to inaccessible fibroids or bowel interference. The aim of this study was to implement a newly developed 3-step modified manipulation protocol and to evaluate its influence on the number of eligible women and treatment fai

Dimers, Effective Interactions, and Pauli Blocking Effects in a Bilayer of Cold Fermionic Polar Molecules

We consider a bilayer setup with two parallel planes of cold fermionic polar molecules when the dipole moments are oriented perpendicular to the planes. The binding energy of two-body states with one polar molecule in each layer is determined and compared to various analytic approximation schemes in both coordinate- and momentum-space. The effective interaction of two bound dimers is obtained by integrating out the internal dimer bound state wave function and its robustness under analytical approximations is studied. Furthermore, we consider the effect of the background of other fermions on the dimer state through Pauli blocking, and discuss implications for the zero-temperature many-body phase diagram of this experimentally realizable system.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, accepted versio