Microbial Cell Division and Separation: Effect of Citrate on the Growth of Group N Streptococci

In the presence of citrate, some strains of lactic streptococci grow as long chains of innumerable cells. The results with citrate-negative and citrate-resistant variants suggest that citrate is involved in the cell separation system of the streptococci. Observations of the long chains under scanning and transmission electron microscopes suggest that citrate inhibits a certain step near the final cell separation, or that citrate can stimulate initiation of cell division at multiple sites, thereby leading to the cells in long chains

An easily integrable industrial system for gamma spectroscopic analysis and traceability of stones and building materials

In the building material and stones market, lots of restrictions are coming in different world zones. In Europe, a recent regulatory set up the maximum level of radiological emissions for materials intended for use in public and private building structures. For this reason, companies need to have a very efficient radiological measurements system in their production chain, in order to respect all the rules and to be competitive in the world market. This article describes CORSAIR, a Cloud-Oriented Measurement System for Radiological Investigation and Traceability of Stones. Our cyber-physical system consists of sensing nodes network connected to a data collection gateway through LoRaWAN protocol, and interfaces with a centralized cloud application. CORSAIR introduces a fast, repeatable, real-time and non-destructive method to measure radiological emissions and other parameters of each single building material item, uniquely identified by an applied RFID tag. The validity of this system is confirmed by in-situ measurement campaign compared with high-precision laboratory analysis. The results demonstrate the accuracy of the CORSAIR sensor and the possibility to easily integrate it in the company production chain without any change

Temporal transferability of updated alternative-specific constants in disaggregate mode choice models

Mode choice, Disaggregate model, Model updating, Transferability,