Isolation and characterization of the outer membrane of Escherichia coli with autodisplayed Z-domains

Abstract“Autodisplay technology” is an expression technique used to display the various recombinant proteins on the outer membrane (OM) of Escherichia coli. The resulting autodisplayed Z-domain has been used to improve the sensitivity of immunoassays. In this work, a facile isolation method of the OM fraction of E. coli with autodisplayed Z-domains was presented using (1) an enzyme reaction for the hydrolysis of the peptidoglycan layer and (2) short centrifugation steps. The purity of the isolated OM fraction was analyzed. For the estimation of contamination with bacterial proteins from other parts of E. coli, Western blots of marker proteins for the OM (OmpA), periplasm (β-lactamase), inner membrane (SecA), and cytoplasm (β-galactosidase) were performed. Additionally, assays of marker components or enzymes from each part of E. coli were carried out including the OM (KDO), inner membrane (NADH oxidase), periplasm (β-lactamase), and cytoplasm (β-galactosidase). The yield of OM isolation using this new method was determined to be 80% of the total OM amount, with less than 1% being contaminants from other parts of E. coli

Precise Radial Velocities of Polaris: Detection of Amplitude Growth

We present a first results from a long-term program of a radial velocity study of Cepheid Polaris (F7 Ib) aimed to find amplitude and period of pulsations and nature of secondary periodicities. 264 new precise radial velocity measurements were obtained during 2004-2007 with the fiber-fed echelle spectrograph Bohyunsan Observatory Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) of 1.8m telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO) in Korea. We find a pulsational radial velocity amplitude and period of Polaris for three seasons of 2005.183, 2006.360, and 2007.349 as 2K = 2.210 +/- 0.048 km/s, 2K = 2.080 +/- 0.042 km/s, and 2K = 2.406 +/- 0.018 km/s respectively, indicating that the pulsational amplitudes of Polaris that had decayed during the last century is now increasing rapidly. The pulsational period was found to be increasing too. This is the first detection of a historical turnaround of pulsational amplitude change in Cepheids. We clearly find the presence of additional radial velocity variations on a time scale of about 119 days and an amplitude of about +/- 138 m/s, that is quasi-periodic rather than strictly periodic. We do not confirm the presence in our data the variation on a time scale 34-45 days found in earlier radial velocity data obtained in 80's and 90's. We assume that both the 119 day quasi-periodic, noncoherent variations found in our data as well as 34-45 day variations found before can be caused by the 119 day rotation periods of Polaris and by surface inhomogeneities such as single or multiple spot configuration varying with the time.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Quality of Service Control for WLAN-based Converged Personal Network Service

This paper proposes a framework for quality of service (QoS) control in WLAN-based converged personal network service (CPNS). First, we show that the CPNS devices in WLANs occupy the shared wireless channel in an unfair manner; and thus, QoS is degraded. The reasons of such problem are analyzed from two viewpoints of (i) channel access mechanism according to carrier sensing multiple access protocol of WLAN and (ii) TCP congestion control mechanism in response to packet loss. To improve QoS and assure fair channel sharing, we propose an integrated QoS control framework consisting of admission control and rate control. Based on the available capacity, the admission control determines whether or not a specific QoS service can be admitted. The rate control is implemented using congestion window control or token bucket algorithm. The proposed mechanism differentiates QoS service from best-effort (BE) service such that the QoS service is preferentially served to satisfy its QoS requirements and the BE service is served to share the remaining resource in a fair manner. The extensive simulation results confirm that the proposed scheme assures QoS and fair channel sharing for WLAN-based CPNS

A WPAN Platform Design in Mobile Phone Considering Application Development and Usability

In this paper, we propose a WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network) platform for converged network services integrating a cellular network and a WPAN. We mainly focus on an easy-to-develop and easy-to-use WPAN platform for wireless communication services using both networks. The proposed WPAN platform consists of a WPAN handset platform, a WPAN connection scheme, and a WPAN server platform. The WPAN handset platform provides abstract WPAN API (Application Programming Interface) set and application management module. Using the WPAN connection scheme, the user can enjoy converged network services in a convenient way. The WPAN server platform manages the overall services and digital devices that are connected to the handset. Compared to the existing WPAN related platform, we consider the need for the integrated service components allowing for the development of WPAN applications in the handset and their convenience for the user. Also, illustrative services and devices are implemented using the proposed method, which show the applicability of the proposed WPAN platform