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

Tracing uncertainty contributors in the multi‐hazard risk analysis for compound extremes

In this study, an iterative factorial multimodel Bayesian copula (IFMBC) framework was developed for revealing uncertainties in risk inferences of compound extremes under the consideration of diverse model structures and parameter sets. Particularly, an iterative factorial analysis (IFA) method would be advanced in IFMBC to track the dominant contributors to the imprecise predictions of multi-hazard risks. The developed IFMBC framework was applied for the risk assessment of compound floods at two estuarine systems (i.e., Washington and Philadelphia) in US. The results indicate that the most likely compound events, under predefined return periods, exhibit noticeable uncertainties. Those uncertainties also present multiple hotspots which may be attributed to different impacts from different factors. By applying the IFA method, the results suggest the copula structure would likely be ranked as one of the top 2 impact factors for predictions of failure probabilities (FPs) in the scenarios of AND, and Kendall, with its contributions higher than 30% for FP in Kendall (more than 40% at Washington) and more than 25% for FP in Kendall (larger than 40% at Philadelphia). In comparison, the copula structure may not pose a visible effect on the predictive uncertainty for FP in OR, with its contribution possibly less than 5% under long-term service time periods. However, the marginal distributions would have higher effects on FP in OR than the effects on the other two FPs. Particularly, the marginal distribution for the extreme variable with high skewness and kurtosis values tends to be ranked as one of the most significant impact factors for FP in OR. Also, the overall impacts from parametric uncertainties in both marginal and dependence models cannot be neglected for the predictions of all three failure probabilities (FPs) with their contributions probably larger than 20% under a short service time period. Compared with the traditional multilevel factorial analysis, the IFA method can provide more reliable characterization for uncertainty contributors in multi-hazard risk analyses, since the traditional method seems to significantly overestimate the contributions from parameter uncertainties

Solving Solar Neutrino Puzzle via LMA MSW Conversion

We analyze the existing solar neutrino experiment data and show the allowed regions. The result from SNO's salt phase itself restricts quite a lot the allowed region's area. Reactor neutrinos play an important role in determining oscillation parameters. KamLAND gives decisive conclusion on the solution to the solar neutrino puzzle, in particular, the spectral distortion in the 766.3 Ty KamLAND data gives another new improvement in the constraint of solar MSW-LMA solutions. We confirm that at 99.73% C.L. the high-LMA solution is excluded.Comment: 6 eps figure

High Altitude test of RPCs for the ARGO-YBJ experiment

A 50 m**2 RPC carpet was operated at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (Tibet) located 4300 m a.s.l. The performance of RPCs in detecting Extensive Air Showers was studied. Efficiency and time resolution measurements at the pressure and temperature conditions typical of high mountain laboratories, are reported.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instr. Met

Direct Measurements of the Branching Fractions for D0→K−e+νeD^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e and D0→π−e+νeD^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e and Determinations of the Form Factors f+K(0)f_{+}^{K}(0) and f+π(0)f^{\pi}_{+}(0)

The absolute branching fractions for the decays $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ are determined using $7584\pm 198 \pm 341$ singly tagged $\bar D^0$ sample from the data collected around 3.773 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC. In the system recoiling against the singly tagged $\bar D^0$ meson, $104.0\pm 10.9$ events for $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $9.0 \pm 3.6$ events for $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ decays are observed. Those yield the absolute branching fractions to be $BF(D^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e)=(3.82 \pm 0.40\pm 0.27)$ and $BF(D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e)=(0.33 \pm 0.13\pm 0.03)$. The vector form factors are determined to be $|f^K_+(0)| = 0.78 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.03$ and $|f^{\pi}_+(0)| = 0.73 \pm 0.14 \pm 0.06$. The ratio of the two form factors is measured to be $|f^{\pi}_+(0)/f^K_+(0)|= 0.93 \pm 0.19 \pm 0.07$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Search for the Lepton Flavor Violation Processes J/ψ→J/\psi \to μτ\mu\tau and eτe\tau

The lepton flavor violation processes $J/\psi \to \mu\tau$ and $e\tau$ are searched for using a sample of 5.8$\times 10^7$ $J/\psi$ events collected with the BESII detector. Zero and one candidate events, consistent with the estimated background, are observed in $J/\psi \to \mu\tau, \tau\to e\bar\nu_e\nu_{\tau}$ and $J/\psi\to e\tau, \tau\to\mu\bar\nu_{\mu}\nu_{\tau}$ decays, respectively. Upper limits on the branching ratios are determined to be $Br(J/\psi\to\mu\tau)<2.0 \times 10^{-6}$ and $Br(J/\psi \to e\tau) < 8.3 \times10^{-6}$ at the 90% confidence level (C.L.).Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

The σ\sigma pole in J/ψ→ωπ+π−J/\psi \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^-

Using a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events recorded in the BESII detector, the decay $J/\psi \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^-$ is studied. There are conspicuous $\omega f_2(1270)$ and $b_1(1235)\pi$ signals. At low $\pi \pi$ mass, a large broad peak due to the $\sigma$ is observed, and its pole position is determined to be $(541 \pm 39)$ - $i$ $(252 \pm 42)$ MeV from the mean of six analyses. The errors are dominated by the systematic errors.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PL

Observation of the decay \psip\rar\kstark

Using 14 million $\psi(2S)$ events collected with the BESII detector, branching fractions of \psip\rar\kstarkpm and \kstarknn are determined to be: \calB(\psip\rar\kstarkpm)=(2.9^{+1.3}_{-1.7}\pm0.4)\times 10^{-5} and \calB(\psip\rar\kstarknn)=(13.3^{+2.4}_{-2.7}\pm1.9)\times 10^{-5}. The results confirm the violation of the "12%" rule for these two decay channels with higher precision. A large isospin violation between the charged and neutral modes is observed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Fabrication of CuO nanoparticle interlinked microsphere cages by solution method

Here we report a very simple method to convert conventional CuO powders to nanoparticle interlinked microsphere cages by solution method. CuO is dissolved into aqueous ammonia, and the solution is diluted by alcohol and dip coating onto a glass substrate. Drying at 80 °C, the nanostructures with bunchy nanoparticles of Cu(OH)2can be formed. After the substrate immerges into the solution and we vaporize the solution, hollow microspheres can be formed onto the substrate. There are three phases in the as-prepared samples, monoclinic tenorite CuO, orthorhombic Cu(OH)2, and monoclinic carbonatodiamminecopper(II) (Cu(NH3)2CO3). After annealing at 150 °C, the products convert to CuO completely. At annealing temperature above 350 °C, the hollow microspheres became nanoparticle interlinked cages