Influence of biological inductors on the synthesis and biological activity of microbial metabolites

The increasing antibiotic resistance is a severe concern for humanity. Co-cultivation of microorganisms is a promising method for obtaining new secondary antimicrobial metabolites. An effective strategy for co-cultivation of microorganisms involves the usage of certain biological inductors. The aim of this review is to summarize existing scientific research in the literature related to the influence of physiologically different types of biological inductors on the synthesis and biological activity of microbial secondary metabolites. An analysis of the literature has shown that in such studies, either live or inactivated cells of the inductor are added to the culture medium at significantly lower concentrations compared to the producer cells of the final metabolites, or the supernatant (filtrate) after cultivation of a competitive microorganism is used as an inductor. According to the literature and our own experimental studies, the using inductors is an effective approach not only for intensifying the synthesis of bacteriocins, surfactants, and antibiotics, but also for increasing their biological activity. Additionally, it often leads to the production of novel antimicrobial compounds that are not typical for the producer. However, the mechanisms of effect of inductors on the synthesis of biologically active secondary metabolites require further research, as the literature suggests that their introduction into the cultivation medium of producer does not always lead to an intensification of the synthesis of the final product. Moreover, the biological activity of secondary metabolites depends on the cultivation conditions of the producer, including the presence of biological inductors in the culture medium. Therefore, it is essential to conduct further research on the interaction between producers and competitive microorganisms to regulate the biological activity of the synthesised metabolites. In addition, there is a necessity to search for more cost-effective substrates for the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, optimize the composition of the culture medium and expand the range of both pro- and eukaryotic inductors

Theory and Phenomenology of Hadrons

This Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) aperc,u highlights recent applications to mesons. It reports features of, and results for, pseudoscalar and scalar bound-state residues in vacuum polarisations, and exhibits how a restoration of chiral symmetry in meson trajectories could be manifest in a relationship between them. It also touches on nucleon studies, emphasising the importance of both scalar and axial-vector diquark correlations, and reporting the calculation of mu_n G_E^n(Q^2)/G_M^n(Q^2). The value of respecting symmetries, including Poincare' covariance, is stressed.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, contribution to proceedings of "18th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics," Santos, Brazil, August 21-26, 200

Impact of the pulling rate on the redox state and magnetic domains of Fe-Si-O glass ceramic processed by LFZ method

This work studies the effect of the pulling rate, varying from 100 to 400 mm/h, on the redox state, structure and magnetic properties of iron oxide bearing silica glasses processed by laser floating zone (LFZ) method. XRD analysis revealed that the maximum crystallinity is obtained in the fibre grown at the lowest pulling rate. A detailed Raman analysis demonstrated that the global content of Fe2+ increases with pulling rate, while the growth under a lower pulling rate promotes the α-Fe2O3 crystallization. Atomic/magnetic force microscopy provided further evidence of phase-separated iron oxide crystallites formation with a high Fe2+/Ftotal ratio as the pulling rate increases. The magnetic measurements performed over a wide temperature range showed that the highest magnetization is found in the fibre grown at the highest pulling rate. A strong correlation between structural-topographical features and the magnetic characteristics of the glass fibres is substantiated.publishe

Superconformal mechanics and nonlinear supersymmetry

We show that a simple change of the classical boson-fermion coupling constant, $2\alpha \to 2\alpha n$, $n\in \N$, in the superconformal mechanics model gives rise to a radical change of a symmetry: the modified classical and quantum systems are characterized by the nonlinear superconformal symmetry. It is generated by the four bosonic integrals which form the so(1,2) x u(1) subalgebra, and by the 2(n+1) fermionic integrals constituting the two spin-n/2 so(1,2)-representations and anticommuting for the order n polynomials of the even generators. We find that the modified quantum system with an integer value of the parameter $\alpha$ is described simultaneously by the two nonlinear superconformal symmetries of the orders relatively shifted in odd number. For the original quantum model with $|\alpha|=p$, $p\in \N$, this means the presence of the order 2p nonlinear superconformal symmetry in addition to the osp(2|2) supersymmetry.Comment: 16 pages; misprints corrected, note and ref added, to appear in JHE

Radiative corrections to the excitonic molecule state in GaAs microcavities

The optical properties of excitonic molecules (XXs) in GaAs-based quantum well microcavities (MCs) are studied, both theoretically and experimentally. We show that the radiative corrections to the XX state, the Lamb shift $\Delta^{\rm MC}_{\rm XX}$ and radiative width $\Gamma^{\rm MC}_{\rm XX}$, are large, about $10-30$ of the molecule binding energy $\epsilon_{\rm XX}$, and definitely cannot be neglected. The optics of excitonic molecules is dominated by the in-plane resonant dissociation of the molecules into outgoing 1$\lambda$-mode and 0$\lambda$-mode cavity polaritons. The later decay channel, ``excitonic molecule $\to$ 0$\lambda$-mode polariton + 0$\lambda$-mode polariton'', deals with the short-wavelength MC polaritons invisible in standard optical experiments, i.e., refers to ``hidden'' optics of microcavities. By using transient four-wave mixing and pump-probe spectroscopies, we infer that the radiative width, associated with excitonic molecules of the binding energy $\epsilon_{\rm XX} \simeq 0.9-1.1$ meV, is $\Gamma^{\rm MC}_{\rm XX} \simeq 0.2-0.3$ meV in the microcavities and $\Gamma^{\rm QW}_{\rm XX} \simeq 0.1$ meV in a reference GaAs single quantum well (QW). We show that for our high-quality quasi-two-dimensional nanostructures the $T_2 = 2 T_1$ limit, relevant to the XX states, holds at temperatures below 10 K, and that the bipolariton model of excitonic molecules explains quantitatively and self-consistently the measured XX radiative widths. We also find and characterize two critical points in the dependence of the radiative corrections against the microcavity detuning, and propose to use the critical points for high-precision measurements of the molecule bindingenergy and microcavity Rabi splitting.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Axion-induced oscillations of cooperative electric field in a cosmic magneto-active plasma

We consider one cosmological application of an axionic extension of the Maxwell-Vlasov theory, which describes axionically induced oscillatory regime in the state of global magnetic field evolving in the anisotropic expanding (early) universe. We show that the cooperative electric field in the relativistic plasma, being coupled to the pseudoscalar (axion) and global magnetic fields, plays the role of a regulator in this three-level system; in particular, the cooperative (Vlasov) electric field converts the regime of anomalous growth of the pseudoscalar field, caused by the axion-photon coupling at the inflationary epoch of the universe expansion, into an oscillatory regime with finite density of relic axions. We analyze solutions to the dispersion equations for the axionically induced cooperative oscillations of the electric field in the relativistic plasma.Comment: 7 pages, misprints correcte

Density Functional Study of Cubic to Rhombohedral Transition in α\alpha-AlF3_3

Under heating, $\alpha$-AlF$_3$ undergoes a structural phase transition from rhombohedral to cubic at temperature $T$ around 730 K. The density functional method is used to examine the $T$=0 energy surface in the structural parameter space, and finds the minimum in good agreement with the observed rhombohedral structure. The energy surface and electronic wave-functions at the minimum are then used to calculate properties including density of states, $\Gamma$-point phonon modes, and the dielectric function. The dipole formed at each fluorine ion in the low temperature phase is also calculated, and is used in a classical electrostatic picture to examine possible antiferroelectric aspects of this phase transition.Comment: A 6-page manuscript with 4 figures and 4 table

Kohn Anomalies in Superconductors

I present the detailed behavior of phonon dispersion curves near momenta which span the electronic Fermi sea in a superconductor. I demonstrate that an anomaly, similar to the metallic Kohn anomaly, exists in a superconductor's dispersion curves when the frequency of the phonon spanning the Fermi sea exceeds twice the superconducting energy gap. This anomaly occurs at approximately the same momentum but is {\it stronger} than the normal-state Kohn anomaly. It also survives at finite temperature, unlike the metallic anomaly. Determination of Fermi surface diameters from the location of these anomalies, therefore, may be more successful in the superconducting phase than in the normal state. However, the superconductor's anomaly fades rapidly with increased phonon frequency and becomes unobservable when the phonon frequency greatly exceeds the gap. This constraint makes these anomalies useful only in high-temperature superconductors such as $\rm La_{1.85}Sr_{.15}CuO_4$.Comment: 18 pages (revtex) + 11 figures (upon request), NSF-ITP-93-7