The analysis of oral microbial communities of wild-type and toll-like receptor 2-deficient mice using a 454 GS FLX Titanium pyrosequencer

Background: Although mice have long served as an animal model for periodontitis, information on the composition of their indigenous oral microbiota is limited. The aim of the current study was to characterize mouse oral bacterial flora by applying extensive parallel pyrosequencing using the latest model pyrosequencer, a Roche/454 Genome Sequencer FLX Titanium. In addition, the effect of Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2 deficiency on oral microbiota was evaluated. Results: Eight oral bacterial communities of wild-type (n = 4) and TLR2 knock-out (n = 4) C57BL/6 mice were characterized by analyzing 80,046 reads of 16S rRNA genes obtained by pyrosequencing. Excluding the PCR primers, the average length of each sequencing product was 443 bp. The average species richness of the murine oral bacterial communities was estimated to be about 200, but the communities were dominated by only two main phyla and several species. Therefore, the bacterial communities were relatively simple. The bacterial composition of the murine oral microbiota was significantly different from that of humans, and the lack of TLR2 had a negligible effect on the murine oral microbiota. Conclusion: Pyrosequencing using the Roche/454 FLX Titanium successfully characterized mouse oral bacterial communities. The relatively simple oral bacterial communities of mice were not affected by TLR2 deficiency. These findings will provide a basis for future studies on the role of periodontal pathogens in the murine model of periodontitis.This study was supported by grants R13-2008-008-01003-0 from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.

Maximized performance of dye solar cells on plastic: a combined theoretical and experimental optimization approach

We demonstrate that a combined optimization approach based on the sequential alternation of theoretical analysis and experimental realization gives rise to plastic supported dye solar cells for which both light harvesting efficiency and electron collection are maximized. Rationalized configurations with optimized light trapping and charge extraction are realized to achieve photoanodes on plastic prepared at low temperature, showing a power conversion efficiency of 8.55% and a short circuit photocurrent of 16.11 mA cm 2, unprecedented for plastic based dye solar cell devices. Furthermore, the corresponding fully flexible designs present stable mechanical properties after several bending cycles, displaying 7.79% power conversion efficiency, an average broadband internal quantum efficiency above 90%, and a short circuit photocurrent of 15.94 mA cm 2, which is the largest reported value for bendable cells of this sort to dateEuropean Union 307081, 622533Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MAT2014-54852-R, MAT2011–2359

Water-Soluble Epitaxial NaCl Thin Film for Fabrication of Flexible Devices

We studied growth mechanisms of water-soluble NaCl thin films on single crystal substrates. Epitaxial growth of NaCl(100) on Si(100) and domain-matched growth of NaCl(111) on c-sapphire were obtained at thicknesses below 100 nm even at room temperature from low lattice mismatches in both cases. NaCl thin film, which demonstrates high solubility selectivity for water, was successfully applied as a water-soluble sacrificial layer for fabrication of several functional materials, such as WO3 nano-helix and Sn doped In2O3 nano-branches.111Ysciescopu

THE EFFECT OF GAS TEMPERATURE AND VELOCITY ON COAL DRYING IN FLUIDIZED BED DRYER

The objective of this research work is to develop fluidized bed coal dryer to overcome the disadvantages of low rank coal with high moisture such as low calorific values, costly transportation, high emissions of pollutants, and operational problem. In this paper, laboratory scale bubbling fluidized bed was used to dry high moisture, low-rank Indonesian coal to produce low moisture, high-rank coal. The effects of temperature, gas velocity and bed height to diameter ratio (L/D) on drying rate were studied to obtain information relating to optimum operating conditions. Coal characterizations (proximate analysis, ultimate analysis, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), BET, Higher Heating Value (HHV), Lower Heating Value (LHV)) were performed to identify the effect of the change of moisture content. This investigation aims to study the drying process under moderated heating conditions. As a result of the experiments the conclusion is that the thermal fluidized bed process can be successfully applied to reducing moisture in Indonesian coal. Results also indicate that about 80~90% of total moisture could be reduced, including some of the inherent moisture, yielding high heating value product. The drying rate of coal in a fluidized bed is increased by increasing the temperature and velocity of the drying gas. However gas temperature had limitations causing from the spontaneous combustion and gas velocity has to be decided considering energy efficiency

Association Between Hearing Impairment and Albuminuria With or Without Diabetes Mellitus

Objectives Few studies have evaluated the accurate association between hearing loss (HL) and albuminuria in patients with or without diabetes mellitus (DM). The aim of our study was to identify the clinical effects of albuminuria on HL with or without DM. Methods This study included 9,762 patients from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2011 and 2013. Participants were divided into 4 groups based on DM and urine albumin/creatinine ratio levels: group 1 included participants with neither DM nor albuminuria, group 2 included participants without DM and with albuminuria, group 3 included patients with DM and without albuminuria, and group 4 included patients with both DM and albuminuria. The low- or mid-frequency and high-frequency, and average hearing threshold values were obtained. Results There were 7,508, 545, 1,325, and 384 participants in groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the 3 hearing thresholds in group 1 were the lowest and those in group 4 were the highest among the 4 groups. No significant differences were observed in those thresholds between groups 2 and 3. Group 4 was associated with HL compared with the other groups, but moderate to severe HL was not associated with DM or albuminuria. Conclusion The presence of albuminuria was associated with a modest effect on hearing thresholds regardless of presence of DM

Realization of giant magnetoelectricity in helimagnets

We show that low field magnetoelectric (ME) properties of helimagnets Ba0.5Sr1.5Zn2(Fe1-xAlx)12O22 can be efficiently tailored by Al-substitution level. As x increases, the critical magnetic field for switching electric polarization is systematically reduced from ~1 T down to ~1 mT, and the ME susceptibility is greatly enhanced to reach a giant value of 2.0 x 10^4 ps/m at an optimum x = 0.08. We find that control of nontrivial orbital moment in the octahedral Fe sites through the Al-substitution is crucial for fine tuning of magnetic anisotropy and obtaining the conspicuously improved ME characteristics

Experience of Comamonas Acidovorans Keratitis with Delayed Onset and Treatment Response in Immunocompromised Cornea

summary:We make some comments on the problem of how the Henstock-Kurzweil integral extends the McShane integral for vector-valued functions from the descriptive point of view