Ammonia-Assimilating Microbes in the Animal Waste Treatment Systems

Ammonia assimilation by microbes is one of important steps of ammonia removal from animal waste treatment systems. We have investigated about distribution and abundance of ammonia-assimilating microbes in the animal waste treatment systems. Ammonia assimilating microorganisms were isolated from the animal waste treatment systems by nitrogen-limited medium. Many of isolates utilized ammonia even when they were cultivated in the media containing viable microbial flora of the animal waste treatment systems. Almost of the dominant species which were detected by analysis of microbial community structure did not coincide with isolates which showed the high ammonia-assimilating ability in the lagoon, but some species by analysis of actinomycetes community structure coincided with the high ammonia-assimilating isolates in the compost. These results suggested that ammonia-assimilating microbes existed as non-dominant species in the microbial community in a lagoon, but some of cultured actinomycetes were the member of dominant species in the actinomycetes community in compost

Simultaneous Measurement of Torsional Oscillator and NMR of Very Dilute 3He in Solid 4He

We have investigated the NMR properties of dilute 3He impurities in solid 4He contained in a torsional oscillator (TO) by the simultaneous measurement of the NMR and the torsional oscillator response of the so-called supersolid 4He. From measurements on samples with one hundred to a few hundred ppm of 3He, we have found three different states of 3He. The first is the homogeneously distributed isolated 3He atom in a solid matrix of 4He. The second is the 3He cluster in a homogeneous 4He matrix, which appears below the phase separation temperature of a solid mixture. The third is the 3He cluster in some nonuniform part of a 4He crystal. We find that 3He atoms contained in the third component remain in a nearby location even above the phase separation temperature. Based on the fact that even a ppm of 3He affects the supersolid response in a TO below and above the phase separation temperature, we propose that the nonuniform part of a crystal that holds the third type of 3He and thus has a higher local concentration of 3He plays an important role in the supersolid phenomenon in a TO.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review