Effect of intragastric feeding with qualitatively different mixtures on the microflora composition of the intestines in rats

Rats of four groups each holding 6-8 animals were changed over to intragastric nutrition with different mixtures one week after cannula implantation into the stomach. The observation period constituted 15 days. The rats of two other groups were kept on oral feeding with a common diet. As compared to oral feeding, intragastric one led to alterations in the cecum microflora. More profound hydrolysis of the nutrients contained by the mixture produced a more demonstrable increase in the number of enterobacteria, enterococci, staphylococci, and lactobacilli. Intragastric feeding with a mixture without nitrogenous component sharply reduced the number of lactobacilli in the cecum contents.     

Toxicity of Detroit River Sediment-Bound Contaminants to Ultraplankton

Four sites in the Detroit River/Lake Erie western basin were evaluated for their toxicity. The evaluation was based on 1) bulk chemical characterization of the sediments, 2) chemical composition of the sediment elutriates, and 3) toxicity of the elutriates to ultraplankton and microplankton/net plankton. A sequence of decreasing contamination was determined from the chemical composition of the elutriates based on the elutriation release of metals such as Zn, Mn, Cd, Ni, and Co. Bioassessment of elutriate toxicity was determined by carbon-14 Algal Fractionation Bioassays (AFB's) which were conducted with various dilutions of standard and Chelex-100 treated elutriates. Site A (near Windsor, Ontario) and Site D (western Lake Erie) were found to be toxic to ultraplankton. The observed toxicity was attributed to the bioavailability and synergistic impact of elutriated metals on ultraplankton production. A direct relationship between the water soluble metal fraction and toxicity was observed. These results confirmed that sediment toxicity should not be evaluated solely on bulk chemical composition of the sediments. The AFB's have been proven useful in the bioassessment of sediments due to their rapidity/sensitivity and hence could be routinely used for the screening and early detection of contaminants affecting fast growing organisms which form the basis of the aquatic food chain.     

Structural and mechanical properties and effective permeability of fissured materials

The article investigates the dependences of porosity and of the permeability tensor of an elastic fissured medium on the characteristics of its state of stress and the pressure of the permeating liquid.Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 49, No. 5, pp. 818–826, November, 1985.     

Hybrid Link/Path-Based Design for Translucent Photonic Network Dimensioning

The advancement of ultralong-haul transmission technology has dramatically enhanced the all-optical reaches. However, the actual situations of installed fiber and sites for terrestrial network often prevent implementing a purely transparent network, and thus, opaque reshaping retiming regenerating (3R) regeneration is required to guarantee optical signal reachability. Since 3R regenerators based on optical/electrical/optical conversion tend to dominate the total network costs, an efficient network design method that allocates a minimum number of 3R regenerators to optimum locations is essential to build a cost-effective photonic network. In this paper, we propose such a network-dimensioning method by combining the advantages of link-based and path-based design approaches. It first guarantees optical signal reachability for any possible traffic demand in each segmented linear link. After combining all the links, excessive regenerators are eliminated based on the optical signal quality check with -factor calculation for each wavelength path. A trial design of a large-scale mesh network demonstrated a significant cost savings of more than 30% in comparison with a conventional link-based design. In the trial, the impact of fiber loss coefficient over the total network cost was investigated quantitatively, addressing the importance of such quantitative modeling and analysis.     

Characterisation and biological treatment of greywater.

Characterisation of greywater was conducted in two different greywater streams in the Netherlands (Groningen and Sneek). The concentrations of macropollutants and nutrients measured were very different in both streams; in particular the COD was 425 mg/L in Groningen's water whereas in Sneek it was 1,583 mg/L. The aerobic treatment of greywater in a fed-batch reactor led to a 90% removal of COD at different organic loading rates. Anaerobically, the removal reached 40% COD removal on average, the possible reason being the high amount of surfactants present in the influent.     

Analysis of the effect of polypyrrole synthesis conditions on its capacity to reduce hexavalent chromium

This paper reports the capacity of polypyrrole to reduce toxic hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)). The influence of using different electrolytes during the polymer's synthesis has been studied. To improve the reduction of Cr(VI), the parameters considered were the polypyrrole morphology and the amount of conducting polymer. Polypyrrole obtained by cyclic voltammetry at a low sweep rate using KBr as supporting electrolyte showed better performance for Cr(VI) reduction compared to coatings obtained by constant potential or cyclic voltammetry at high sweep rates.     

Stable operation range for laser diodes with an integrated passivecavity in the presence of external optical feedback

It is shown that a laser diode with an integrated passive cavity yields higher tolerable levels of feedback from distant reflections than an equivalent long solitary laser diode. To ensure this high tolerance for external feedback, the internal feedback level in the integrated passive cavity must be of the order of about 10%. Then the laser diode remains stable up to external feedback levels in excess of 1% even if the internal reflection phase is not carefully adjusted. External reflections from a cleaved fiber end are then not sufficient to drive the laser into coherence collapse, if realistic coupling efficiencies between laser diode and fiber are taken into account. The low feedback sensitivity is explained by the combination of the long effective length of the laser and a high relaxation resonance frequency. Therefore, quantum-well laser diodes with a long length and a high relaxation resonance frequency are likewise expected to exhibit low feedback sensitivity     

In memoriam

Sans résumé

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In memoriam