Soul Connections

The work the author does touches his soul and the person he is caring for

Krill: An exploration in underwater sensor networks

While sensor networks have now become very popular on land, the underwater environment still poses some difficult problems. Communication is one of the difficult challenges under water. There are two options: optical and acoustic. We have designed an optical communication board that allows the Fleck’s to communicate optically. We have tested the resulting underwater sensor nodes in two different applications

Study of Acid Hydrolysis on Organic Waste: Understanding The Effect of Delignification and Particle Size

Organic wastes from Swiettenia marcophylla L, Artocarpus heterophyllus L, Mangifera indica L, and Annona muricata L were prepared by grinding into 0.1875, 0.3750, 0.7500 mm of particle size and delignified by 2% NaOH at 80°C for 90 minutes. Acid dilution hydrolysis process with H2SO4 1% was performed at 150°C for 120 minutes in a closed reactor. The effect of particle size and delignification on and reducing sugar concentration were investigated. The result showed (1) leaves that can be used as raw material to produce hydrogen should have 38–49% cellulose and hemicellulose. (2) Reducing sugar concentration increased with particle size reduction and delignification. (3) the best result with the highest reducing sugar concentration was achieved by 0.1875 mm particle size with delignification on Annona muricata L

Clinically Relevant Plasmid-Host Interactions Indicate that Transcriptional and Not Genomic Modifications Ameliorate Fitness Costs of Klebsiella pneumoniae Carbapenemase-Carrying Plasmids

The rapid dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) around the globe is largely due to mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids. They confer resistance to critically important drugs, including extended-spectrum beta-lactams, carbapenems, and colistin. Large, complex resistance plasmids have evolved alongside their host bacteria. However, much of the research on plasmid-host evolution has focused on small, simple laboratory plasmids in laboratory-adapted bacterial hosts. These and other studies have documented mutations in both host and plasmid genes which occur after plasmid introduction to ameliorate fitness costs of plasmid carriage. We describe here the impact of two naturally occurring variants of a large AMR plasmid (pKpQIL) on a globally successful pathogen. In our study, after pKpQIL plasmid introduction, no changes in coding domain sequences were observed in their natural host, Klebsiella pneumoniae. However, significant changes in chromosomal and plasmid gene expression may have allowed the bacterium to adapt to the acquisition of the AMR plasmid. We hypothesize that this was sufficient to ameliorate the associated fitness costs of plasmid carriage, as pKpQIL plasmids were maintained without selection pressure. The dogma that removal of selection pressure (e.g., antimicrobial exposure) results in plasmid loss due to bacterial fitness costs is not true for all plasmid/host combinations. We also show that pKpQIL impacted the ability of K. pneumoniae to form a biofilm, an important aspect of virulence. This study used highly relevant models to study the interaction between AMR plasmids and pathogens and revealed striking differences from results of studies done on laboratory-adapted plasmids and strains

Landmarks for Absolute Localization

For certain experiments in mobile robotics, it is convenient to eliminate positional estimation error in the interest of analyzing other parts of the experiment. We designed and implemented a simple, accurate scheme for encoding and recovering absolute position information. The encoding is a two-dimensional image printed on the plane of the floor, and the absolute position information is recovered using a downward-looking video camera mounted on a mobile robot. 1 Introduction In any scientific undertaking, it is important to hold control variables constant so that one can examine the experimental variables carefully. In our experiments with mobile robotics, we had certain experiments that would have been facilitated if the variable of positional or odometry error could have been eliminated. This inspired us to design a laboratory tool that could do just that: provide simple, inexpensive, and accurate position information over the plane of the floor, eliminating positional uncertainty..