1,666 research outputs found
Microbial oxidation of arsenite in a subarctic environment: diversity of arsenite oxidase genes and identification of a psychrotolerant arsenite oxidiser
Background: Arsenic is toxic to most living cells. The two soluble inorganic forms of arsenic are arsenite (+3) and arsenate (+5), with arsenite the more toxic. Prokaryotic metabolism of arsenic has been reported in both thermal and moderate environments and has been shown to be involved in the redox cycling of arsenic. No arsenic metabolism (either dissimilatory arsenate reduction or arsenite oxidation) has ever been reported in cold environments (i.e. < 10°C).
Results: Our study site is located 512 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, Canada in an inactive gold mine which contains mine waste water in excess of 50 mM arsenic. Several thousand tonnes of arsenic trioxide dust are stored in underground chambers and microbial biofilms grow on the chamber walls below seepage points rich in arsenite-containing solutions. We compared the arsenite oxidisers in two subsamples (which differed in arsenite concentration) collected from one biofilm. 'Species' (sequence) richness did not differ between subsamples, but the relative importance of the three identifiable clades did. An arsenite-oxidising bacterium (designated GM1) was isolated, and was shown to oxidise arsenite in the early exponential growth phase and to grow at a broad range of temperatures (4-25°C). Its arsenite oxidase was constitutively expressed and functioned over a broad temperature range.
Conclusions: The diversity of arsenite oxidisers does not significantly differ from two subsamples of a microbial biofilm that vary in arsenite concentrations. GM1 is the first psychrotolerant arsenite oxidiser to be isolated with the ability to grow below 10°C. This ability to grow at low temperatures could be harnessed for arsenic bioremediation in moderate to cold climates
Control strategies for integration of electric motor assist and functional electrical stimulation in paraplegic cycling: Utility for exercise testing and mobile cycling
AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate feedback
control strategies for integration of electric motor assist and functional electrical stimulation (FES) for paraplegic cycling, with particular focus on development of a testbed for exercise testing in FES cycling, in which both cycling cadence and workrate are simultaneously well controlled and contemporary physiological measures of exercise performance derived. A second aim was
to investigate the possible benefits of the approach for mobile, recreational cycling.
METHODS: A recumbent tricycle with an auxiliary electric motor is used, which is adapted for paraplegic users, and instrumented for stimulation control. We propose a novel integrated control strategy which simultaneously provides feedback control of leg power output (via automatic adjustment of stimulation intensity) and cycling cadence (via electric motor control). Both loops are
designed using system identification and analytical (model-based) feedback design methods. Ventilatory and pulmonary gas exchange response profiles are derived using a portable system for real-time breath-by-breath acquisition.
RESULTS:We provide indicative results from one paraplegic subject in which a series of feedback-control tests illustrate accurate control of cycling cadence, leg power control, and external disturbance rejection. We also provide physiological response profiles from a submaximal exercise step test and a maximal incremental exercise test, as facilitated by the control strategy.
CONCLUSION: The integrated control strategy is effective in facilitating
exercise testing under conditions of well-controlled cadence
and power output. Our control approach significantly extends the
achievable workrate range and enhances exercise-test sensitivity
for FES cycling, thus allowing a more stringent characterization
of physiological response profiles and estimation of key parameters
of aerobic function.We further conclude that the control approach
can significantly improve the overall performance of mobile recreational
cycling
Overview of theoretical precision of the luminosity at future electron-positron colliders
For both the FCC-ee and the ILC, to exploit properly the respective precision physics program, the theoretical precision tag on the respective luminosity will need to be improved from the analogs of the 0.054%(0.061%) results at LEP at , where the former (latter) LEP result has (does not have) the pairs correction. At the FCC-ee at one needs improvement to 0.01%, for example. We present an overview of the roads one may take to reach the required 0.01% precision tag at the FCC-ee and of what the corresponding precision expectations would be for the FCC-ee, ILC, ILC and CLIC setups
Targeting Neutrophilic Inflammation using Polymersome-Mediated Cellular Delivery
Neutrophils are key effector cells in inflammation and play an important role in neutralizing invading pathogens. During inflammation resolution, neutrophils undergo apoptosis before they are removed by macrophages, but if apoptosis is delayed, neutrophils can cause extensive tissue damage and chronic disease. Promotion of neutrophil apoptosis is a potential therapeutic approach for treating persistent inflammation, yet neutrophils have proven difficult cells to manipulate experimentally. In this study, we deliver therapeutic compounds to neutrophils using biocompatible, nanometer-sized synthetic vesicles, or polymersomes, which are internalized by binding to scavenger receptors and subsequently escape the early endosome through a pH-triggered disassembly mechanism. This allows polymersomes to deliver molecules into the cell cytosol of neutrophils without causing cellular activation. After optimizing polymersome size, we show that polymersomes can deliver the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (R)-roscovitine into human neutrophils to promote apoptosis in vitro. Finally, using a transgenic zebrafish model, we show that encapsulated (R)-roscovitine can speed up inflammation resolution in vivo more efficiently than the free drug. These results show that polymersomes are effective intracellular carriers for drug delivery into neutrophils. This has important consequences for the study of neutrophil biology and the development of neutrophil-targeted therapeutics
Static Hopfions in the extended Skyrme-Faddeev model
We construct static soliton solutions with non-zero Hopf topological charges
to a theory which is an extension of the Skyrme-Faddeev model by the addition
of a further quartic term in derivatives. We use an axially symmetric ansatz
based on toroidal coordinates, and solve the resulting two coupled non-linear
partial differential equations in two variables by a successive over-relaxation
(SOR) method. We construct numerical solutions with Hopf charge up to four, and
calculate their analytical behavior in some limiting cases. The solutions
present an interesting behavior under the changes of a special combination of
the coupling constants of the quartic terms. Their energies and sizes tend to
zero as that combination approaches a particular special value. We calculate
the equivalent of the Vakulenko and Kapitanskii energy bound for the theory and
find that it vanishes at that same special value of the coupling constants. In
addition, the model presents an integrable sector with an infinite number of
local conserved currents which apparently are not related to symmetries of the
action. In the intersection of those two special sectors the theory possesses
exact vortex solutions (static and time dependent) which were constructed in a
previous paper by one of the authors. It is believed that such model describes
some aspects of the low energy limit of the pure SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, and
our results may be important in identifying important structures in that strong
coupling regime.Comment: 22 pages, 42 figures, minor correction
The use of incidence counts for estimation of aphid populations. 1. Minimum sample size for required accuracy
Teneinde de bemonsteringstijd voor graanluizen te reduceren en een eenvoudige betrouwbare bemonsteringsmethode te ontwikkelen wordt telling van het aantal individuen per halm vaak vervangen door bepaling van het bezettingspercentage. Deze eenvoudige methode mag evenwel niet leiden tot een onaanvaardbaar verlies in nauwkeurigheid. Daarom wordt voor de directe telmethode en de methode met infectiepercentages de minimale monstergrootte bepaald bij een van te voren vastgestelde nauwkeurigheid. Het blijkt dat bij bladluizendichtheden, die dicht bij de economische schadedrempel liggen, de monsters bij de twee methoden niet in grootte behoeven te verschille
The influence of process conditions on the structure and properties of melt processed poly (lactic acid) nanohydroxyapatite composites
- …