39,520 research outputs found
Pseudomonas aeruginosa can be detected in a polymicrobial competition model using impedance spectroscopy with a novel biosensor
Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is a powerful technique that can be used to elicit information about an electrode interface. In this article, we highlight six principal processes by which the presence of microorganisms can affect impedance and show how one of these - the production of electroactive metabolites - changes the impedance signature of culture media containing Pseudomonas aeruginosa. EIS, was used in conjunction with a low cost screen printed carbon sensor to detect the presence of P. aeruginosa when grown in isolation or as part of a polymicrobial infection with Staphylococcus aureus. By comparing the electrode to a starting measurement, we were able to identify an impedance signature characteristic of P. aeruginosa. Furthermore, we are able to show that one of the changes in the impedance signature is due to pyocyanin and associated phenazine compounds. The findings of this study indicate that it might be possible to develop a low cost sensor for the detection of P. aeruginosa in important point of care diagnostic applications. In particular, we suggest that a development of the device described here could be used in a polymicrobial clinical sample such as sputum from a CF patient to detect P. aeruginosa
Arctic marine climate of the early nineteenth century
The climate of the early nineteenth century is likely to have been significantly cooler than that of today, as it was a period of low solar activity (the Dalton minimum) and followed a series of large volcanic eruptions. Proxy reconstructions of the temperature of the period do not agree well on the size of the temperature change, so other observational records from the period are particularly valuable. Weather observations have been extracted from the reports of the noted whaling captain William Scoresby Jr., and from the records of a series of Royal Navy expeditions to the Arctic, preserved in the UK National Archives. They demonstrate that marine climate in 1810 - 1825 was marked by consistently cold summers, with abundant sea-ice. But although the period was significantly colder than the modern average, there was considerable variability: in the Greenland Sea the summers following the Tambora eruption (1816 and 1817) were noticeably warmer, and had less sea-ice coverage, than the years immediately preceding them; and the sea-ice coverage in Lancaster Sound in 1819 and 1820 was low even by modern standards. © 2010 Author(s)
On The Orbital Evolution of Jupiter Mass Protoplanet Embedded in A Self-Gravity Disk
We performed a series of hydro-dynamic simulations to investigate the orbital
migration of a Jovian planet embedded in a proto-stellar disk. In order to take
into account of the effect of the disk's self gravity, we developed and adopted
an \textbf{Antares} code which is based on a 2-D Godunov scheme to obtain the
exact Reimann solution for isothermal or polytropic gas, with non-reflecting
boundary conditions. Our simulations indicate that in the study of the runaway
(type III) migration, it is important to carry out a fully self consistent
treatment of the gravitational interaction between the disk and the embedded
planet. Through a series of convergence tests, we show that adequate numerical
resolution, especially within the planet's Roche lobe, critically determines
the outcome of the simulations. We consider a variety of initial conditions and
show that isolated, non eccentric protoplanet planets do not undergo type III
migration. We attribute the difference between our and previous simulations to
the contribution of a self consistent representation of the disk's self
gravity. Nevertheless, type III migration cannot be completely suppressed and
its onset requires finite amplitude perturbations such as that induced by
planet-planet interaction. We determine the radial extent of type III migration
as a function of the disk's self gravity.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure
Validity of the Impact on Participation and Autonomy questionnaire – a comparison between the Netherlands and the UK
Resummed Quantum Gravity
We present the current status of the a new approach to quantum general
relativity based on the exact resummation of its perturbative series as that
series was formulated by Feynman. We show that the resummed theory is UV finite
and we present some phenomenological applications as well.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; presented at ICHEP0
Building research capacity in a practitioner network: the National Action Research Network on researching and evaluating Personal Development Plannin
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