Mass formulas and thermodynamic treatment in the mass-density-dependent model of strange quark matter

The previous treatments for strange quark matter in the quark mass-density-dependent model have unreasonable vacuum limits. We provide a method to obtain the quark mass parametrizations and give a self-consistent thermodynamic treatment which includes the MIT bag model as an extreme. In this treatment, strange quark matter in bulk still has the possibility of absolute stability. However, the lower density behavior of the sound velocity is opposite to previous findings.Comment: Formatted in REVTeX 3.1, 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in PRC6

Effects of different probiotics on the gut microbiome and metabolites in the serum and caecum of weaning piglets

The objective of the study was to determine the effects of antibiotics, yeast culture (YC), and Lactobacillus culture (LC) on the gut microbiome and metabolites in the serum and caecum of weaning piglets. Twenty-four weaning piglets were divided into four treatment groups: control, antibiotic (1% chlortetracycline), 1.8% yeast culture (YC), and 1.6% Lactobacillus culture groups (LC). Each group had six replicated pens with one pig per pen. Feed and water were available ad libitum. Dietary supplementation with antibiotics, YC and LC increased the abundance of phylum, Firmicutes, and decreased the abundance of phylum, Proteobacteria. Beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Megasphaera in YC and LC groups increased, whereas the proportion of Shigella was decreased. Genera Alloprevotella and Lachnospira were biomarkers in the control and antibiotic groups, respectively. Phylum, Bacteroidetes, and genus, Collinsella, were biomarkers in the YC group, and Mitsuokella, Anaerotruncus, Syntrophococcus and Sharpea were biomarkers in the LC group. Dietary supplementation with different probiotics changed the serum and caecum metabolite profiles too. Antibiotic supplementation increased the levels of D-mannose, D-glucose, and hexadecanoic acid in the serum, and the levels of myo-inositol, D-mannose and benzenepropanoic acid in the caecum. LC increased the concentrations of D-mannose, cis-9-hexadecenoic acid and heptadecanoic acid in caecum compared with the control group. YC and LC supplementation in the weaning diet could improve the abundance of beneficial bacteria by changing the concentrations of some metabolites in the serum and caecum. Therefore, dietary supplementation with YC or LC could be used as additives instead of antibiotics in weaning piglets.Keywords: antibiotic; lactobacillus culture; yeast culture; high-throughput sequencing; gas chromatography mass spectrometr

Investigation on wear and rolling contact fatigue of wheel-rail materials under various wheel/rail hardness ratio and creepage conditions

The wear and rolling contact fatigue of wheel-rail materials were investigated through varying wheel/rail hardness ratios (Hw/Hr) and creepages. The results indicated that with the Hw/Hr increasing from 0.927 to 1.218, the wheel wear rate reduced significantly in the case of Hw/Hr = 1.218, the rail wear rate showed an increasing trend. Both the wheel and rail wear rates increased as the creepage enlarged. The synergistic results of Hw/Hr and creepage caused a transition of the wear and damage mechanisms on the wheel-rail steels. Besides, the fatigue damage of ER7 and CL60 wheel materials was dominated by slender multi-layer cracks, while the fatigue cracks were short and contained lots of interlayer broken materials on C-class wheel steel