Quantification and genotyping of Cryptosporidium spp. in river water by quenching probe PCR and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis.

A new detection method was developed for the simultaneous quantification and genotyping of Cryptosporidium spp. in river water. Several modifications made to the US EPA Method 1623 enabled high and stable recovery of Cryptosporidium from 40 L of river water (geometric mean = 35%, standard deviation = 8.7%). Quenching probe PCR (QProbe PCR) was used to quantify the 18S rRNA gene of Cryptosporidium spp. This method could successfully detect single oocysts in a sample, and the lower quantitation limit was as low as 2.5 oocysts/sample. In addition, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) followed by DNA sequencing was used to identify the genotypes. These methods were applied to detect Cryptosporidium spp. in the Koyama River, Japan. The positive ratio was 69% (11/16) with the maximum concentration of 59 oocysts/100 L. Seven genotypes including two novel ones were identified. These results showed that this detection method could provide valuable information on Cryptosporidium in river water, both in the concentration and in the genotypes, which is essential for the precise assessment of waterborne risk to human health.     

奥氏体锰钢轨部件的修理和装配

奥氏体锰钢是一种非常坚硬的无磁性合金钢，它的性能和大多数普遍使用的抗磨损结构钢不同。对许多轨道工程部件来说，它是一种更可取的材料。铁路辙岔和交叉处是重要的，但其它重要部件还包括开关的防护装置、铸造镶嵌件和桥式轨道部件。奥氏体锰钢承载力高，耐久性好。在冲击和负重下不会断裂。它的淬火硬化能力是最主要的一个优势。零部件表面在冲击下硬化，有些变形，但下面的母材仍保留原来的硬度。裂缝的蔓延速度非常慢。     

Cover Picture: Light‐Emitting Organic Solar Cells Based on a 3D Conjugated System with Internal Charge Transfer (Adv. Mater. 22/2006)

The cover image illustrates the dual photovoltaic and electroluminescence function of a single‐layer device based on a thienylenevinylene–triphenylamine with internal charge transfer (ICT), as reported by Cravino, Roncali, and co‐workers on p. 3033. The material forms an organic glass with isotropic electronic properties while ICT leads simultaneously to an extension of the photoresponse to the red and to an increase of the open circuit voltage. The use of an additional layer of C₆₀ further improves the photovoltaic. Images of the sun and moon courtesy NASA/JPL–Caltech.     

Transformations in machining. Part 1. enhancement of wavelet transformation neural network (WT-NN) combination with a preprocessor

Properly selected transformation methods obtain the most significant characteristics of metal cutting data efficiently and simplify the classification. Wavelet Transformation (WT) and Neural Networks (NN) combination was used to classify the experimental cutting force data of milling operations previously. Preprocessing (PreP) of the approximation coefficients of the WT is proposed just before the classification by using the Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART2) type NNs. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used to estimate the weights of each coefficient of the PreP. The WT-PreP-NN (ART2) combination worked at lower vigilances by creating only a few meaningful categories without any errors. The WT-NN (ART2) combination could obtain the same error rate only if very high vigilances are used and many categories are allowed.     

Functional characteristics of Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 + δ/ZrN composites

We present the results of investigation of the magnetic, transport, structural, and mechanical properties of composites obtained by introducing finely dispersed zirconium nitride into a matrix of a Bi₂Sr₂Ca₂Cu₃O_{10 + δ} (Bi2223) high-temperature superconductor. It is established that the introduction of ZrN particles in the range of very small concentrations (0.1–0.3 wt %) leads to a significant (more than threefold) increase in the critical current density of Bi2223 and increases the density of the composite, while the microhardness of the superconducting phase remains unchanged.     

Setting-up a cost recovery system for the largest wastewater treatment plant in South-East Asia.

A tariff system has been set up for the largest wastewater treatment plant in South-East Asia, the Samut Prakarn Wastewater Treatment Plant south of Bangkok, which is currently under completion. Fully functional the plant will have a design capacity for 500,000 m3 per day and will service a combined residential and industrial area with approximately 600,000 residents and 2,300 factories. The tariff system, which includes a tariff model, is based on water consumption and BOD load. As background for setting the tariffs a comprehensive monitoring system including an industrial permitting system has been developed. The paper presents the background and rationale for setting up the system as well as the objective, scope and content of the tariff system and the industrial permit system. Further, the feasibility of introducing cost recovery systems, which is widely accepted in developing economies on the conceptual level and to some extent implemented at the legal and regulatory level, but has yet to be implemented at large, is discussed.     

Analysis of time-frequency duality of MC and DS CDMA for multiantenna systems on highly time-varying and wide-band channels

Direct sequence (DS) and multicarrier (MC) are code-division multiple-access (CDMA) schemes based on single-carrier and MC modulations, respectively. While in DS CDMA, spreading is performed by increasing the transmission rate, or in the time domain, in MC CDMA, spreading is performed using several subcarriers, or in the frequency domain. In this paper, it is shown that MC and DS CDMA are time-frequency dual systems. Their analysis in time- and frequency-dispersive multiple-input multiple-output channels revealed that they can be described equally in terms of dual-channel functions, therefore exhibiting the same performance on dual channels. Furthermore, the duality property is used to derive matched filters for highly time-variant and wide-band channels. Finally, other issues involved in the comparison of DS and MC, namely spreading-sequence design and multiuser detection, are addressed.