Natronoflexus pectinivorans gen. nov. sp. nov., an obligately anaerobic and alkaliphilic fermentative member of Bacteroidetes from soda lakes

Anaerobic enrichment with pectin at pH 10 and moderate salinity inoculated with sediments from soda lakes of the Kulunda Steppe (Altai, Russia) resulted in the isolation of a novel member of the Bacteroidetes, strain AP1T. The cells are long, flexible, Gram-negative rods forming pink carotenoids. The isolate is an obligate anaerobe, fermenting various carbohydrates to acetate and succinate. It can hydrolyze and utilize pectin, xylan, starch, laminarin and pullulan as growth substrates. Growth is possible in a pH range from 8 to 10.5, with an optimum at pH 9.5, and at a salinity range from 0.1 to 2 M Na+. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA sequences placed the isolate into the phylum Bacteroidetes as a separate lineage within the family Marinilabilaceae. On the basis of distinct phenotype and phylogeny, the soda lake isolate AP1T is proposed to be assigned in a new genus and species Natronoflexus pectinivorans (=DSM24179T = UNIQEM U807T)

Soliton absorption spectroscopy

We analyze optical soliton propagation in the presence of weak absorption lines with much narrower linewidths as compared to the soliton spectrum width using the novel perturbation analysis technique based on an integral representation in the spectral domain. The stable soliton acquires spectral modulation that follows the associated index of refraction of the absorber. The model can be applied to ordinary soliton propagation and to an absorber inside a passively modelocked laser. In the latter case, a comparison with water vapor absorption in a femtosecond Cr:ZnSe laser yields a very good agreement with experiment. Compared to the conventional absorption measurement in a cell of the same length, the signal is increased by an order of magnitude. The obtained analytical expressions allow further improving of the sensitivity and spectroscopic accuracy making the soliton absorption spectroscopy a promising novel measurement technique.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

Bulk Nanocrystalline Thermoelectrics Based on Bi-Sb-Te Solid Solution

A nanopowder from p-Bi-Sb-Te with particles ~ 10 nm were fabricated by the ball milling using different technological modes. Cold and hot pressing at different conditions and also SPS process were used for consolidation of the powder into a bulk nanostructure and nanocomposites. The main factors allowing slowing-down of the growth of nanograins as a result of recrystallization are the reduction of the temperature and of the duration of the pressing, the increase of the pressure, as well as addition of small value additives (like MoS2, thermally expanded graphite or fullerenes). It was reached the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT=1.22 (at 360 K) in the bulk nanostructure Bi0,4Sb1,6Te3 fabricated by SPS method. Some mechanisms of the improvement of the thermoelectric efficiency in bulk nanocrystalline semiconductors based on BixSb2-xTe3 are studied theoretically. The reduction of nanograin size can lead to improvement of the thermoelectric figure of merit. The theoretical dependence of the electric and heat conductivities and the thermoelectric power as the function of nanograins size in BixSb2-xTe3 bulk nanostructure are quite accurately correlates with the experimental data.Comment: 35 pages, 24 figures, 4 tables, 52 reference

String cosmology from Poisson-Lie T-dual sigma models on supermanifolds

We generalize the formulation of Poisson-Lie T-dual sigma models on manifolds to supermanifolds. In this respect, we formulate 1+1 dimensional string cosmological models on the Lie supergroup C^3 and its dual (A_1,1 + 2A)^0_(1,0,0), which are coupled to two fermionic fields. Then, we solve the equations of motion of the models and show that there is a essential singularity for the metric of the original model and its dual.Comment: 17 pages, Appendix and three references have adde

A Twistor Formulation of the Non-Heterotic Superstring with Manifest Worldsheet Supersymmetry

We propose a new formulation of the $D=3$ type II superstring which is manifestly invariant under both target-space $N=2$ supersymmetry and worldsheet $N=(1,1)$ super reparametrizations. This gives rise to a set of twistor (commuting spinor) variables, which provide a solution to the two Virasoro constraints. The worldsheet supergravity fields are shown to play the r\^ole of auxiliary fields.Comment: 21p., LaTe

Evidence for the classical integrability of the complete AdS(4) x CP(3) superstring

We construct a zero-curvature Lax connection in a sub-sector of the superstring theory on AdS(4) x CP(3) which is not described by the OSp(6|4)/U(3) x SO(1,3) supercoset sigma-model. In this sub-sector worldsheet fermions associated to eight broken supersymmetries of the type IIA background are physical fields. As such, the prescription for the construction of the Lax connection based on the Z_4-automorphism of the isometry superalgebra OSp(6|4) does not do the job. So, to construct the Lax connection we have used an alternative method which nevertheless relies on the isometry of the target superspace and kappa-symmetry of the Green-Schwarz superstring.Comment: 1+26 pages; v2: minor typos corrected, acknowledgements adde

Development of the cell-ELISA test for the subtype identification of circulating influenza A(H1) and A(H3) viruses

The sensitive version of cell-ELISA was developed for the subtype-specific differentiation of current influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and A(H3N2) viruses that are circulating in the human population. This method is based on the estimation of virus reproduction in infected MDCK cells. The detection step of this method is an interaction of the subtype-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with the viral hemagglutinin (НА) molecule. The influenza A virus strains, isolated in the 2014 epidemic season, were used to validate this method.It was shown that when using mAbs # 1/ # 2 or # 4 at a concentration of 10-15 µg/ml, the developed variant of cell-ELISA was able to detect НА protein synthesized in the infected cells of influenza A(H3N2) and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses, respectively.The developed method can be used for the identification of modern influenza A viruses with low hemagglutination activity, which is not possible by the conventional hemagglutination inhibition test.The sensitive version of cell-ELISA was developed for the subtype-specific differentiation of current influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and A(H3N2) viruses that are circulating in the human population. This method is based on the estimation of virus reproduction in infected MDCK cells. The detection step of this method is an interaction of the subtype-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with the viral hemagglutinin (НА) molecule. The influenza A virus strains, isolated in the 2014 epidemic season, were used to validate this method. It was shown that when using mAbs # 1/ # 2 or # 4 at a concentration of 10-15 µg/ml, the developed variant of cell-ELISA was able to detect НА protein synthesized in the infected cells of influenza A(H3N2) and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses, respectively. The developed method can be used for the identification of modern influenza A viruses with low hemagglutination activity, which is not possible by the conventional hemagglutination inhibition test

A twistor-like D=10 superparticle action with manifest N=8 world-line supersymmetry

We propose a new formulation of the $D=10$ Brink-Schwarz superparticle which is manifestly invariant under both the target-space super-Poincar\'e group and the world-line local $N=8$ superconformal group. This twistor-like construction naturally involves the sphere $S^8$ as a coset space of the $D=10$ Lorentz group. The action contains only a finite set of auxiliary fields, but they appear in unusual trilinear combinations. The origin of the on-shell $D=10$ fermionic $\kappa$ symmetry of the standard Brink-Schwarz formulation is explained. The coupling to a $D=10$ super-Maxwell background requires a new mechanism, in which the electric charge appears only on shell as an integration constant.Comment: 22pages, standard LATEX fil

Simplifying superstring and D-brane actions in AdS(4) x CP(3) superbackground

By making an appropriate choice for gauge fixing kappa-symmetry we obtain a relatively simple form of the actions for a D=11 superparticle in AdS(4) x S(7)/Z_k, and for a D0-brane, fundamental string and D2-branes in the AdS(4) x CP(3) superbackground. They can be used to study various problems of string theory and the AdS4/CFT3 correspondence, especially in regions of the theory which are not reachable by the OSp(6|4)/U(3) x SO(1,3) supercoset sigma-model. In particular, we present a simple form of the gauge-fixed superstring action in AdS(4) x CP(3) and briefly discuss issues of its T-dualization.Comment: 1+36 pages, v2,v3 clarifications and references adde