Identification of novel clostridium perfringens type E strains that carry an iota toxin plasmid with a functional enterotoxin gene

Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) is a major virulence factor for human gastrointestinal diseases, such as food poisoning and antibiotic associated diarrhea. The CPE-encoding gene (cpe) can be chromosomal or plasmid-borne. Recent development of conventional PCR cpe-genotyping assays makes it possible to identify cpe location (chromosomal or plasmid) in type A isolates. Initial studies for developing cpe genotyping assays indicated that all cpe-positive strains isolated from sickened patients were typable by cpe-genotypes, but surveys of C. perfringens environmental strains or strains from feces of healthy people suggested that this assay might not be useful for some cpe-carrying type A isolates. In the current study, a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis Southern blot assay showed that four cpe-genotype untypable isolates carried their cpe gene on a plasmid of ~65 kb. Complete sequence analysis of the ~65 kb variant cpe-carrying plasmid revealed no intact IS elements and a disrupted cytosine methyltransferase (dcm) gene. More importantly, this plasmid contains a conjugative transfer region, a variant cpe gene and variant iota toxin genes. The toxin genes encoded by this plasmid are expressed based upon the results of RT-PCR assays. The ~65 kb plasmid is closely related to the pCPF4969 cpe plasmid of type A isolates. MLST analyses indicated these isolates belong to a unique cluster of C. perfringens. Overall, these isolates carrying a variant functional cpe gene and iota toxin genes represent unique type E strains. © 2011 Miyamoto et al

Group velocity and causality in standard relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamics

Group velocity of electromagnetic waves in plasmas derived by standard relativistic resistive MHD (resistive RMHD) equations is superluminal. If we assume that the group velocity represents the propagation velocity of a signal, we have to worry about the causality problem. That is, some acausal phenomena may be induced, such that information transportation to the absolute past and spontaneous decrease in the entropy. Here, we tried to find the acausal phenomena using standard resistive RMHD numerical simulations in the suggested situation of the acausal phenomena. The calculation results showed that even in such situations no acausal effect happens. The numerical result with respect to the velocity limit of the information transportation is consistent with a linear theory of wave train propagation. Our results assure that we can use these equations without problems of acausal phenomena.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figure

Outgassing measurement of the aluminum alloy UHV chamber

A large vacuum chamber (580 mm diameter) was fabricated from an aluminum alloy surface treated by a special process normally used on small chambers. The chamber was tested unbaked and baked at various temperatures, pressures, and holding periods. The chamber was filled with N2 gas, and the outgassing rate was measured after one hour. Then the ultimate pressure was measured. Outgassing rates for baked and unbaked groups were compared. It is concluded that the same surface treatment technique can be used on both large and small chambers produced by the same special extrusion process

Passive spiral formation from halo gas starvation: Gradual transformation into S0s

Recent spectroscopic and high resolution $HST$-imaging observations have revealed significant numbers of ``passive'' spiral galaxies in distant clusters, with all the morphological hallmarks of a spiral galaxy (in particular, spiral arm structure), but with weak or absent star formation. Exactly how such spiral galaxies formed and whether they are the progenitors of present-day S0 galaxies is unclear. Based on analytic arguments and numerical simulations of the hydrodynamical evolution of a spiral galaxy's halo gas (which is a likely candidate for the source of gas replenishment for star formation in spirals), we show that the origin of passive spirals may well be associated with halo gas stripping. Such stripping results mainly from the hydrodynamical interaction between the halo gas and the hot intracluster gas. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that even if a spiral orbits a cluster with a pericenter distance $\sim$ 3 times larger than the cluster core radius, $\sim$ 80 % of the halo gas is stripped within a few Gyr and, accordingly, cannot be accreted by the spiral. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that this dramatic decline in the gaseous infall rate leads to a steady increase in the $Q$ parameter for the disk, with the spiral arm structure, although persisting, becoming less pronounced as the star formation rate gradually decreases. These results suggest that passive spirals formed in this way, gradually evolve into red cluster S0s.Comment: 13 pages 4 figures (fig.1 = jpg format), accepted by Ap

Entanglement of orbital angular momentum states between an ensemble of cold atoms and a photon

Recently, atomic ensemble and single photons were successfully entangled by using collective enhancement [D. N. Matsukevich, \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{95}, 040405(2005).], where atomic internal states and photonic polarization states were correlated in nonlocal manner. Here we experimentally clarified that in an ensemble of atoms and a photon system, there also exists an entanglement concerned with spatial degrees of freedom. Generation of higher-dimensional entanglement between remote atomic ensemble and an application to condensed matter physics are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Context-Tree-Based Lossy Compression and Its Application to CSI Representation

We propose novel compression algorithms for time-varying channel state information (CSI) in wireless communications. The proposed scheme combines (lossy) vector quantisation and (lossless) compression. First, the new vector quantisation technique is based on a class of parametrised companders applied on each component of the normalised CSI vector. Our algorithm chooses a suitable compander in an intuitively simple way whenever empirical data are available. Then, the sequences of quantisation indices are compressed using a context-tree-based approach. Essentially, we update the estimate of the conditional distribution of the source at each instant and encode the current symbol with the estimated distribution. The algorithms have low complexity, are linear-time in both the spatial dimension and time duration, and can be implemented in an online fashion. We run simulations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in such scenarios.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Communication

Superfluidity of 4^4He Confined in Nano-Porous Media

We have examined superfluid properties of $^4$He confined to a nano-porous Gelsil glass that has nanopores 2.5 nm in diameter. The pressure-temperature phase diagram was determined by torsional oscillator, heat capacity and pressure studies. The superfluid transition temperature $T_{\mathrm c}$ approaches zero at 3.4 MPa, indicating a novel "quantum" superfluid transition. By heat capacity measurements, the nonsuperfluid phase adjacent to the superfluid and solid phases is identified to be a nanometer-scale, localized Bose condensation state, in which global phase coherence is destroyed. At high pressures, the superfluid density has a $T$-linear term, and $T_{\mathrm c}$ is proportional to the zero-temperature superfluid density. These results strongly suggest that phase fluctuations in the superfluid order parameter play a dominant role on the phase diagram and superfluid properties.Comment: 6 Pages, 6 Figures, Submitted to "Helium: 100 years", Special Issue of Low Temperature Physic

Electronic Structures of Fe3−xV_{3-x}V_x$Si Probed by Photoemission Spectroscopy

The electronic structures of the Heusler type compounds Fe$_{3-x}V$_x$Si in the concentration range between x = 0 and x = 1 have been probed by photoemission spectroscopy (PES). The observed shift of Si 2p core- level and the main valence band structres indicate a chemical potential shift to higher energy with increasing x. It is also clarified that the density of state at Fermi edge is owing to the collaboration of V 3d and Fe 3d derived states. Besides the decrease of the spectral intensity near Fermi edge with increasing x suggests the formation of pseudo gap at large x.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 5 reference

Surface Scattering via Bulk Continuum States in the 3D Topological Insulator Bi2_{2}Se3_{3}

We have performed scanning tunneling microscopy and differential tunneling conductance ($dI/dV$) mapping for the surface of the three dimensional topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. The fast Fourier transformation applied to the $dI/dV$ image shows an electron interference pattern near Dirac node despite the general belief that the backscattering is well suppressed in the bulk energy gap region. The comparison of the present experimental result with theoretical surface and bulk band structures shows that the electron interference occurs through the scattering between the surface states near the Dirac node and the bulk continuum states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure