5,309 research outputs found
Mercury in the environs of the north slope of Alaska
The analysis of Greenland ice suggests that the flux of mercury from the continents
to the atmosphere has increased in recent times, perhaps partly as a result of the many of
man’s activities that effect an alteration of terrestrial surfaces. Upon the exposure of fresh
crustal matter, the natural outgassing of mercury vapor from the earth’s surface could be
enhanced.
Accordingly, mercury was measured in a variety of environmental materials gathered
from the North Slope of Alaska to provide background data prior to the anticipated increase
of activity in this environment. The materials were collected during the U. S. Coast Guard
WEBSEC 72-73 cruises as well as through the facilities provided by Naval Arctic Research
Laboratory in the spring of 1973.
The method of measurement depended upon radioactivation of mercury with neutrons
and the subsequent quantification of characteristic gamma radiations after radiochemical
purification.
Mercury concentrations in seawater at several locations in the vicinity of 151°W,
71°N averaged 20 parts per trillion. The waters from all stations east of this location showed
a significantly smaller concentration. This difference may relate to penetration o f Bering-
Chukchi Sea water into the southern Beaufort Sea to 151°W. Marine sediments on the shelf
and slope between 143°W and 153°W contained about 100 parts per billion mercury, except
for those on the continental shelf between Barter Island and the Canning River, where the
concentration was less than half this value. These results are consistent with sediment input
from the respective rivers when their mercury content and mineralogy are considered. The
mercury content of river waters was 18 ppt and in reasonable agreement with the average of
snow samples (13 ppt). The burden of mercury in plankton was 37 ppb.This work was supported by the office of Naval Research under grant N R 083-290
Comparative genomic analysis of a multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus hominis ShoR14 clinical isolate from Terengganu, Malaysia, led to the discover of novel mobile genetic elements
Staphylococcus hominis is a coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) commensal capable of causing serious systemic infections in humans. The emergence of multidrug-resistant S. hominis strains is of concern but little is known about the characteristics of this organism, particularly from Malaysia. Here, we present the comparative genome analysis of S. hominis ShoR14, a multidrugresistant, methicillin-resistant blood isolate from Terengganu, Malaysia. Genomic DNA of S. hominis ShoR14 was sequenced on the Illumina platform and assembled using Unicycler v0.4.8. ShoR14 belonged to sequence type (ST) 1 which is the most prevalent ST of the S. hominis subsp. hominis. Comparative genomic analysis with closely related strains in the database with complete genome sequences, led to the discovery of a novel variant of the staphylococcal chromosome cassette mec (SCCmec) type VIII element harboring the mecA methicillin-resistance gene in ShoR14 and its possible carriage of a SCCfus element that encodes the fusidic acid resistance gene (fusC). Up to seven possible ShoR14 plasmid contigs were identified, three of which harbored resistance genes for tetracycline (tetK), chloramphenicol (catA7), macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramin B (ermC). Additionally, we report the discovery of a novel mercury-resistant transposon, Tn7456, other genomic islands, and prophages which make up the S. hominis mobilome
Rigorous formulation of oblique incidence scattering from dispersive media
We formulate a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach to simulate
electromagnetic wave scattering from scatterers embedded in layered dielectric
or dispersive media. At the heart of our approach is a derivation of an
equivalent one-dimensional wave propagation equation for dispersive media
characterized by a linear sum of Debye-, Drude- and Lorentz-type poles. The
derivation is followed by a detailed discussion of the simulation setup and
numerical issues. The developed methodology is tested by comparison with
analytical reflection and transmission coefficients for scattering from a slab,
illustrating good convergence behavior. The case of scattering from a
sub-wavelength slit in a dispersive thin film is explored to demonstrate the
applicability of our formulation to time- and incident angle-dependent analysis
of surface waves generated by an obliquely incident plane wave.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figures, 4 table
Self-consistent Pomeranchon coupling ratios in the multiperipheral model
Given the two leading eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the resonance (low-subenergy) component of a multiperipheral kernel and assuming lower eigenvalues to be unimportant, it is shown how the mixture corresponding to the Pomeranchon eigenfunction may be calculated from considerations of self-consistency. The method is illustrated in a multiperipheral model with pseudoscalar-meson links by associating the two leading unperturbed eigenstates with the 2+ particles f(1260) and f′(1514)
Chemo-enzymatic saccharification strategy of microalgae chlorella sorokiniana
Biofuel production using microalgae attracted much attention because it can be cultured using CO2 and sunlight. With high carbohydrate content, microalgae have the potential to be used as a fermentation feedstock for bioethanol production. In present work, chemo-enzymatic saccharification of Chlorella sorokiniana microalgae were investigated. Chemical hydrolysis of the biomass followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and was also evaluated the effect of combining the two enzymes and the sequential addition. The effect of α-amylase concentrations was analyzed in ranged between 50 and 8000 U/g of biomass and for amyloglucosidase between 90 and 600 U/g of biomass. The higher concentrations showed the highest conversion of reducing sugars. The α-amylase concentration 8000 U/g of biomass presented a conversion of 43.06 ± 2.92% (w/w), while amyloglucosidase with 600 U/g of biomass obtained 76.57 ± 6.42% (w/w). The combination of two enzymes simultaneously was more efficient than the sequential addition for low enzyme concentrations (α-amylase 50 U/g and amyloglucosidase 90 U/g) with a total reducing sugar of 22.78 ± 3.06 and 16.92 ± 2.06% (w/w), respectively. On the other hand, using the higher enzymes concentrations, no difference was observed between the two addition strategies, 58.9 ± 3.55 and 57.05 ± 2.33% (w/w) for the sequential and simultaneous, respectively. Both strategies didn’t present advantage, since the amyloglucosidase enzyme alone produced slightly higher results. Even thought, the obtained results showed successfully performed saccharification of microalgal biomass and clearly point to microalgae use for saccharification and subsequent bioethanol production.Part of this work has been supported by European governments (INTERREG VA-POCTEP- 2014-2020; 0055_ALGARED_PLUS_5_E) and the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) through the grant UID/MAR/00350/2013 to the CIMA of the University of Algarve.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Stability of the Zagreb Carnegie-Mellon-Berkeley model
In ref. [1] we have used the Zagreb realization of Carnegie-Melon-Berkeley
coupled-channel, unitary model as a tool for extracting pole positions from the
world collection of partial wave data, with the aim of eliminating model
dependence in pole-search procedures. In order that the method is sensible, we
in this paper discuss the stability of the method with respect to the strong
variation of different model ingredients. We show that the Zagreb CMB procedure
is very stable with strong variation of the model assumptions, and that it can
reliably predict the pole positions of the fitted partial wave amplitudes.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 19 table
Quasifree pion photoproduction on the deuteron in the region
Photo production of pions on the deuteron is studied in the spectator nucleon
model. The Born terms of the elementary production amplitude are determined in
pseudovector N coupling and supplied with a form factor. The
resonance is considered both in the and the channel. The parameters of
the resonance and the cutoff of the form factors are fixed on the
leading photoproduction multipoles. Results for total and differential cross
sections are compared with experimental data. Particular attention is paid to
the role of Pauli correlations of the final state nucleons in the quasifree
case. The results are compared with those for pion photoproduction on the
nucleon.Comment: 17 pages LateX2e including 5 postscript figure
Why Nature has made a choice of one time and three space coordinates?
We propose a possible answer to one of the most exciting open questions in
physics and cosmology, that is the question why we seem to experience four-
dimensional space-time with three ordinary and one time dimensions. We have
known for more than 70 years that (elementary) particles have spin degrees of
freedom, we also know that besides spin they also have charge degrees of
freedom, both degrees of freedom in addition to the position and momentum
degrees of freedom. We may call these ''internal degrees of freedom '' the
''internal space'' and we can think of all the different particles, like quarks
and leptons, as being different internal states of the same particle. The
question then naturally arises: Is the choice of the Minkowski metric and the
four-dimensional space-time influenced by the ''internal space''?
Making assumptions (such as particles being in first approximation massless)
about the equations of motion, we argue for restrictions on the number of space
and time dimensions. (Actually the Standard model predicts and experiments
confirm that elementary particles are massless until interactions switch on
masses.)
Accepting our explanation of the space-time signature and the number of
dimensions would be a point supporting (further) the importance of the
''internal space''.Comment: 13 pages, LaTe
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