Detection and characterization of a novel antibacterial substance produced by Lactobacillus plantarum ST 31 isolated from sourdough.

Lactobacillus plantarum ST31 isolated from sourdough produced an antimicrobial substance inhibiting other strains of the genera Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Pediococcus, Streptococcus, Bacillus and some foodborne pathogens including Staphylococcus aureus. This antimicrobial substance was inactivated by proteolytic enzymes. Consequently, it was characterized as a bacteriocin and was designated plantaricin ST31. This bacteriocin was stable in the pH range 3-8 and it was not affected by amylolytic enzymes. Production of plantaricin was pH and temperature dependent, and maximum yields were obtained in MRS broth cultures maintained at pH 6 and incubated at 30 degrees C in the exponential phase to the early stationary growth phase of the producer organism. This bacteriocin was purified by using consecutive ammonium sulfate and reversed-phase chromatography. It is a peptide of 20 amino acid residues with a mass of 2755+/-0.3 Da, as determined by electrospray mass spectrometry. The sequence of Plantaricin ST31 showed no similarity to those of other bacteriocins. Plantaricin ST31 production appeared to be chromosomally encoded.     

Impact of the large cross-modulation parameter on the collision dynamics of quasi-particles governed by vector NLSE

For the Coupled Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations (CNLSE) we construct a conservative fully implicit scheme (in the vein of the scheme with internal iterations proposed in [C.I. Christov, S. Dost, G.A. Maugin, Inelasticity of soliton collisions in system of coupled nls equations, Physica Scripta 50 (1994) 449–454.]). Our scheme makes use of complex arithmetic which allows us to reduce the computational time fourfold. The scheme conserves the “mass”, momentum, and energy.     

Structural resemblance to emotional expressions predicts evaluation of emotionally neutral faces.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 9(4) of Emotion (see record 2009-11528-009). In this article a symbol was incorrectly omitted from Figure 1, part C. To see the complete article with the corrected figure, please go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014681.] People make trait inferences based on facial appearance despite little evidence that these inferences accurately reflect personality. The authors tested the hypothesis that these inferences are driven in part by structural resemblance to emotional expressions. The authors first had participants judge emotionally neutral faces on a set of trait dimensions. The authors then submitted the face images to a Bayesian network classifier trained to detect emotional expressions. By using a classifier, the authors can show that neutral faces perceived to possess various personality traits contain objective resemblance to emotional expression. In general, neutral faces that are perceived to have positive valence resemble happiness, faces that are perceived to have negative valence resemble disgust and fear, and faces that are perceived to be threatening resemble anger. These results support the idea that trait inferences are in part the result of an overgeneralization of emotion recognition systems. Under this hypothesis, emotion recognition systems, which typically extract accurate information about a person's emotional state, are engaged during the perception of neutral faces that bear subtle resemblance to emotional expressions. These emotions could then be misattributed as traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

CIGSS films prepared by sol-gel route

Homogeneous layers of amorphous oxides of Cu-In, Cu-In-Ga were deposited by a sol-gel method. Selenization, sulfurization and sequential selenization + sulfurization treatments were performed with elemental S and Se, respectively. Adherent pinhole-free layers were observed by scanning electron microscopy. X-ray diffraction indicated increased gallium incorporation in selenized in comparison with sulfurized films. Band gap values in the range of 1.18-1.63 eV were obtained.     

Inductances,loss resistances and Q-factors of induction coils

Conclusions The suggested new method of determining L_c, R_c and Q_c is applicable to all direct and indirect methods of measuring inductances. Since the values of the latter are very close to each other and are determined in a relatively narrow frequency band by means of the same measuring device, their relative errors L₁/L₁ and L₂/L₂ are of the same order and according to (18) and (19) will not have an appreciable effect on the value of 1–k².For coils with cores whose permeability varies with frequency the ratio n=f₂/f₁ should be selected in such a way that in the measured frequency range the permeability should remain practically unchanged. For coils with cores whose permeability does not vary with frequency,n can be chosen so as to obtain values of L₁ and L₂, suitable for measuring purposes.The new method requires only one additional measurement of the coil inductance, and is simpler than any other method. Providing all the above mentioned conditions are observed and a measuring generator whose f₁/f₁ f₂/f₂ is used, this method can provide a far more precise determination of L_c, R_c and Q_c.     

Über die optimierung der synthese von salicylsäure enthaltenden phenol-formaldehyd-harzen

Experiments were carried out for determination of the optimum condition for obtaining phenolformaldehyde resins by condensation of p-tert. butylphenol (PTBPh), formaldehyde (F) and salicylic acid (SS). Symplex lattics design experiment was used for finding out the maximum of the function Y₁ = f₁ (x₁, x₂, x₃) and Y₂ = f₂ ( x₁, x₂, x₃) where Y₁ was the salicylic acid contents, and Y₂ was the resin yield. The corresponding imperfect cubic equations were derived. Their adequity was ascertained by the t-criterion. It was established as a result of the experiments that the contents of the salicylic acid vary in definite limits depending on the components ratio. The constant favourable case in respect to Y₁ did not exceed 18–19%. The optimum corresponds to molar ratio F:TBPh :Sa = 1,0:0,2:0,27 or in mole-% x₁ = 69, x₂ = 13.5, x₃ = 17.5.     

Genome screening using extremely discordant and extremely concordant sib pairs

We applied extreme sib-pair methods in two ways to the GAW10 Problem 2A data sets to detect susceptible quantitative trait loci using extremely discordant sib pairs only, and combining them with the available extremely concordant sib pairs as suggested by the authors elsewhere. Ten successive original replicates were combined into one sampling pool so as to get the necessary number of extreme sib pairs. A total of 100 replicates were used to produce 10 such data sets for both initial detection and confirmations. Strong signals were found with markers D5G15 for Q1, D8G27-28 for Q4, and D9G7-9 for Q5.     

Meta-analysis methodology for combining non-parametric sibpair linkage results: genetic homogeneity and identical markers

Meta-analysis methodology is developed for combining sibpair linkage results across multiple studies employing different study designs, some employing quantitative traits (e.g., blood pressure) and some employing qualitative traits (e.g., clinical hypertension), under the assumption that the underlying (disease) trait loci are the same. Pooling results based on three commonly used sibpair methods is considered: the affected sibpair method for dichotomous traits and, for quantitative traits, the Haseman-Elston regression method and the Risch-Zhang extremely discordant sibpair method. The proportion of genes shared identical by descent (IBD) by a sibpair of certain trait outcomes is chosen as a common effect to be pooled across studies. Variation in the observed IBD proportions among individual studies is modeled using a random effects model. A heterogeneity test is provided to assess the variability among individual studies. When results from all three types of studies are available, we derive pooled estimates of IBD proportions both for sibpairs with extremely concordant trait values and for sibpairs with extremely discordant trait values, and construct a combined test of linkage based on the difference of the two estimates. Simulation studies demonstrate the need for and the advantage of meta-analysis of linkage results. We also present some guidelines for reporting linkage studies bearing potential future meta-analysis in mind.     

Correlation of the activity of the key enzymes of glycolysis and respiration in hepatomas with different growth rates

It is shown that an increase in the activity of glycolysis resulting from the rise of the hepatoma growth rate is accompanied by a decrease in the activity of the pentose-phosphate pathway and respiratory chain. It is supposed that variations in the activity both of different carbohydrate catabolism ways and the respiration with a rise of the hepatoma growth rate reflect changes in the relative content of cells at different phases of the cell cycle.