Dispersal patterns of endogenous bacteria among grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) guts

The formation and regulation of vertebrate endogenous intestinal microbiota has been widely studied as the microbiota plays a crucial role in the host nutrition, development, and health. Despite the importance of microbiota for host health, it is still unclear whether the endogenous intestinal microorganisms are genetically distinct or whether they are genetically related with each other in different host individuals. In the present study, the dispersal situation of the endogenous intestinal bacteria in grass carp was investigated by constructing bacterial 16S rRNA gene clone libraries. The results indicate that the bacteria harbored in the grass carp gut could be separated into the following two groups: a- the private operational taxonomic units (OTUs), which include Cetobacterium somerae, Aeromonas jandaei, Citrobacter freundii, Achromobacter xylosoxidans and Bacteroides species; b- the shared OTUs, which include Vibrio cholerae, Plesiomonas shigelloides and Pasteurella speices. The results obtained in this investigation provide valuable information for assessing the mechanism of spread of the endogenous intestinal bacteria, especially the pathogenic ones. However, the mechanisms involved in different modes of bacterial dispersal in the grass carp gut still require further research

Light Spanners

A $t$-spanner of a weighted undirected graph $G=(V,E)$, is a subgraph $H$ such that $d_H(u,v)\le t\cdot d_G(u,v)$ for all $u,v\in V$. The sparseness of the spanner can be measured by its size (the number of edges) and weight (the sum of all edge weights), both being important measures of the spanner's quality -- in this work we focus on the latter. Specifically, it is shown that for any parameters $k\ge 1$ and $\epsilon>0$, any weighted graph $G$ on $n$ vertices admits a $(2k-1)\cdot(1+\epsilon)$-stretch spanner of weight at most $w(MST(G))\cdot O_\epsilon(kn^{1/k}/\log k)$, where $w(MST(G))$ is the weight of a minimum spanning tree of $G$. Our result is obtained via a novel analysis of the classic greedy algorithm, and improves previous work by a factor of $O(\log k)$.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, to appear in ICALP 201

Interpolation in non-positively curved K\"ahler manifolds

We extend to any simply connected K\"ahler manifold with non-positive sectional curvature some conditions for interpolation in $\mathbb{C}$ and in the unit disk given by Berndtsson, Ortega-Cerd\`a and Seip. The main tool is a comparison theorem for the Hessian in K\"ahler geometry due to Greene, Wu and Siu, Yau.Comment: 9 pages, Late

Photoresponsive and Ultraviolet to Visible-Light Range Photocatalytic Properties of ZnO:Sb Nanowires

100學年度研究獎補助論文[[abstract]]Zinc oxide (ZnO) doped antimony (Sb) nanowires have been synthesized for improving ultraviolet sensing and photocatalytic properties. Upon illumination by UV light (365nm , 2.33mWcm−2 ), the photoelectric current of the ZnO:Sb nanowires exhibited a rapid photoresponse as compared to that of the ZnO nanowires. A highest ratio of photocurrent to dark current of around 48.8-fold was achieved in the as-synthesized ZnO:Sb nanowires. A UV-visible spectrophotometer was used to investigate the absorbance spectrum of the ZnO:Sb nanowires, which exhibited a high absorbance ratio with redshift effect in contrast to that of the ZnO nanowires. Visible-light photocatalysis and UV photoresponsive properties of the ZnO:Sb nanowires are superior to those of the ZnO nanowires.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]電子

Coulomb Blockade Regime of a Single-Wall Nanotube

A model of carbon nanotube at half filling is studied. The Coulomb interaction is assumed to be unscreened. It is shown that this allows to develop the adiabatic approximation which leads to considerable simplifications in calculations of the excitation spectrum. We give a detailed analysis of the spectrum and the phase diagram at half filling and discuss effects of small doping. At small doping several phases develop strong superconducting fluctuations corresponding to various types of pairing

Urothelial Inverted Papilloma of the Lower Urinary Tract—A Benign Lesion or a Precursor of Malignancy?

ObjectiveWe investigated the clinical characteristics and follow-up results of patients with a lower urinary tract inverted papilloma (IP) in our hospital, with the intention of clarifying whether certain groups require more aggressive surveillance.Materials and MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study of lower urinary tract IP, using the pathology database of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, from September 1992 to February 2008. In total, 67 patients were enrolled. Patients' clinical characteristics, symptoms, tumor locations, and follow-up data were analyzed.ResultsAmong the 67 patients diagnosed with IP, 59 were male and eight were female, with a mean age of 67.9 ± 12.4 years. Gross hematuria and lower-urinary-tract symptoms were the most common symptoms. All of the patients received transurethral resection as initial treatment. Thirty-eight of these patients were monitored for a median of 21 months (range: 3–168 months). Seven patients had synchronous urothelial malignancies, and one had recurrent IP during follow-up. No patient had subsequent urothelial carcinoma or IP recurrence without a synchronous or previous urothelial malignancy during follow-up.ConclusionThere is a low incidence of developing a subsequent malignancy with a simple IP lesion during follow-up. Rigorous surveillance may be unnecessary in IP patients without a synchronous or previous urothelial malignancy

On-column conductivity detection in capillary-chip electrophoresis

On-column conductivity detection in capillary-chip electrophoresis was achieved by actively coupling the high electric field with two sensing electrodes connected to the main capillary channel through two side detection channels. The principle of this concept was demonstrated by using a glass ch p with a separation channel incorporating two double-Ts. One double-T was used for sample introduction, and the other for detection. The two electrophoresis electrodes apply the high voltage and provide the current, and the two sensing electrodes connected to the separation channel through the second double-T and probe a potential difference. This potential difference is directly related to the local resistance or the conductivity of the solution defined by the two side channels on the main separation channel. A detection limit of 15 mM (600 ppb or 900 fg) was achieved for potassium ion in a 2 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 8.7) with a linear range of 2 orders of magnitude without any stacking. The proposed detection method avoids integrating the sensing electrodes directly within the separation channel and prevents any direct contact of the electrodes with the sample. The baseline signal can also be used for online monitoring of the electric field strength and electroosmosis mobility characterization in the separation channel