Bacterial Ecology of Fermented Cucumber Rising pH Spoilage as Determined by Nonculture‐Based Methods

Fermented cucumber spoilage (FCS) characterized by rising pH and the appearance of manure‐ and cheese‐like aromas is a challenge of significant economical impact for the pickling industry. Previous culture‐based studies identified the yeasts Pichia manshurica and Issatchenkia occidentalis, 4 Gram‐positive bacteria, Lactobacillus buchneri, Lactobacillus parrafaraginis, Clostridium sp., and Propionibacterium and 1 Gram‐negative genus, Pectinatus, as relevant in various stages of FCS given their ability to metabolize lactic acid. It was the objective of this study to augment the current knowledge of FCS using culture‐independent methods to microbiologically characterize commercial spoilage samples. Ion Torrent data and 16S rRNA cloning library analyses of samples collected from commercial fermentation tanks confirmed the presence of L. rapi and L. buchneri and revealed the presence of additional species involved in the development of FCS such as Lactobacillus namurensis, Lactobacillus acetotolerans, Lactobacillus panis, Acetobacter peroxydans, Acetobacter aceti, and Acetobacter pasteurianus at pH below 3.4. The culture‐independent analyses also revealed the presence of species of Veillonella and Dialister in spoilage samples with pH above 4.0 and confirmed the presence of Pectinatus spp. during lactic acid degradation at the higher pH. Acetobacter spp. were successfully isolated from commercial samples collected from tanks subjected to air purging by plating on Mannitol Yeast Peptone agar. In contrast, Lactobacillus spp. were primarily identified in samples of FCS collected from tanks not subjected to air purging for more than 4 mo. Thus, it is speculated that oxygen availability may be a determining factor in the initiation of spoilage and the leading microbiota.     

Die Erhöhung des Nutzerkomforts von Fußgängerbrücken mit Massendämpfern am Beispiel des August‐Wilhelm‐Stegs in Oranienburg

Aufgrund ihrer schlanken Bauweise gelten viele Fußgängerbrücken bei personeninduzierten Belastungen als schwingungsanfällig. Die eventuelle Ausstattung einer Brücke mit zusätzlichen Dämpfungsmaßnahmen sollte bereits in der Planungsphase berücksichtigt werden, damit bei Gewissheit, dass Maßnahmen notwendig sind, die Fertigstellung und Eröffnung der Brücke nicht verzögert wird. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird am Beispiel des August‐Wilhelm‐Stegs in Oranienburg das Vorgehen zwischen Erkennen einer möglichen Schwingungsanfälligkeit, Prüfung der Erforderlichkeit schwingungsdämpfender Maßnahmen, Auslegung und Einbau sowie Überprüfung der Wirksamkeit erläutert. Dabei werden insbesondere die praktischen Aspekte bei der Auslegung der Massendämpfer erläutert. The increasing comfort of footbridges with mass dampers is exemplary shown with the August‐Wilhelm‐Steg in Oranienburg, Germany. Many footbridges are susceptible to pedestrian induced vibrations due to their slender design. Hence, an equipment with additional damping devices on demand should be considered already in the preliminary design phase to avoid unnecessary delays of the erection and opening, if the damping devices are required. In this article the procedure of identifying a potential vibration susceptibility, checking the necessity of damping devices, design and installation as well as checking the working efficiency of them are explained using the example of the August‐Wilhelm‐Steg in Oranienburg. Particular emphasis is laid on the practical aspects when designing tuned mass dampers.     

Micro-fluidic target chamber machined by proton beam writing for the in situ analysis of gas absorption in synthetic crystals

Many synthetic crystals used for chemical and industrial applications have special internal structures, e.g. nano-pores, which allow separating different gases and fluids. Ion beam analytical methods can be used to study the gas diffusion and absorption in these materials in situ and to visualize their inner surfaces which affect these processes. For this purpose, a small target chamber was constructed in PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) using proton beam writing (PBW). This micro-fluidic structure enables the establishment of a defined atmosphere around a crystal and allows the simultaneous ion beam analysis. In order to confine the gas from the high vacuum in the measurement chamber Si₃N₄-windows of 200 nm thickness were thermally bonded to the structured PMMA block yielding a closed target chamber with the possibility to accomplish PIXE and RBS measurements. In addition, two capillaries were connected to the chamber for gas inlet and evacuation. First tests showed that the construction is leak-proof and allows to establish a defined atmosphere. After that, the Argon gas diffusion into Zn(tbip)-crystals was studied. These measurements have shown unexpectedly high nickel concentrations in the host crystal which reduces the Argon density in these areas after absorption, because the Ni atoms decrease the pore size by replacing Zn-atoms in the Zn(tbip)-lattice. It could be demonstrated that gas diffusion and absorption in organic crystals can be studied in situ with high lateral resolution using ion beam analysis in a dedicated target chamber machined by PBW.     

HYDROCRACKING OF ARABIAN MIX ASPHALTENES IN THE PRESENCE OF MODIFIED RED MUD

Asphaltenes precipitated from an Arabian Mix vacuum residue were hydro-cracked in a batch autoclave at 435 and 460°C for 5-90 min. Experiments without catalyst, with modified red mud and with an industrial Co Mo/Al₂0₃ catalyst were compared. The products were fractionated into gas, naphtha, oil, asphaltenes and coke. Feed asphaltenes and several product fractions were characterised by elemental analysis, by average molecular mass and by ¹H n.mr. Due to the hydrogenation activity, both catalysts caused - with similar efficiency - the decrease of coke formation and the increase of quantity and quality of oil.     

Thy-1 is a component common to multiple populations of synaptic vesicles

To understand the influence of the ascending path linking area 17 to area 18 of visual cortices, experiments were carried out in which a small neuronal population of area 17 was inactivated with GABA, while unitary responses were recorded in area 18. In the latter, cells are identified as belonging to the simple or complex family according to their firing pattern evoked in response to sine-wave gratings scrolling through the receptive fields. Anesthetized cats were prepared for single-cell recordings. In area 17, a GABA-containing pipette was placed in superficial layers in order to inactivate reversibly a small neuronal population. Prior to blockade, the orientation tuning curves were obtained in both areas and the difference in optimal orientation between areas 17 and 18 was recorded. In area 18, cells were classified as simple or complex. The strategy was to study the reaction of neurons in area 18 prior to, during and after area 17 depression. In most simple cells, whenever the difference in orientation was in the iso-range, that is when the difference in optimal orientations of the injected site (in area 17) and of the neuron in area 18 was less than 30 degrees, the GABA application produced a decline of the evoked discharges, whereas GABA injection augmented the evoked firing rate when the difference was in the cross-range (>60 degrees). In contrast to simple cells, GABA depression enhanced the responses in the majority of complex cells with like orientations in both areas. When the difference between recording sites was in the cross-range, then area 17 depression produced weaker evoked firing. A tangential penetration of the injecting pipette, allowing injection of different orientation sites while testing the same unit in area 18, revealed that the latter could react with an enhancement or a decline of the responses as the injecting pipette shifted from iso (or cross) to cross (or iso) disparity in optimal orientations between areas 17 and 18. These results suggest that the path connecting area 17 to area 18 may be functionally discriminated on the basis of the orientation domain and cell types. In addition, our data suggest that the ascending visual streams are required to generate orientation specificity in area 18.     

Elaborated rank order processors

The author discusses an elaborated rank order processor, which admits constants as operands and preliminary operations on input variables (e.g. negation) so that the processor is also implementable in bit-serial, most significant bit leading, terms. The theory for the special case in which the constant 0 and the operation negation are admitted and a realization in finite autoregressive form exists is discussed. Input/output relations are expressible with a finite-state sequential machine with ternary inputs and outputs; that machine is only a mathematical construct and need not represent an actual device. The question of root signals is examined theoretically and by example. An example showing a bandpass effect is presented, and computer programs for doing the relevant calculations pertaining to finite automata and simulations are offered. A part of a theory for general elaboration is also presented     

Virus-mediated delivery of antigenic epitopes into dendritic cells as a means to induce CTL

Dendritic cells (DC) are potent inducers of CD8+ T cells and can stimulate protective antitumor immunity when pulsed with an antigenic peptide or protein. We used a replication-deficient adenovirus containing a Kb-restricted antigenic peptide of chicken OVA to study CTL induction in vitro and in vivo after adenovirus-mediated gene transfer into DC. The efficiency of adenovirus-infected DC in eliciting a specific CTL response was compared with immunizations with a recombinant vaccinia virus and DC pulsed with peptide or protein. An immortalized DC line derived from a C57BL/6 mouse and freshly isolated splenic DC from C57BL/6 mice were used in CTL induction. Virus-infected DC elicited the strongest Ag-specific CTL response in vitro and in vivo and induced protective antitumor immunity to a challenge with EG.7 tumors (EL-4 cell line expressing OVA). Direct immunization of mice with recombinant adenovirus resulted in the induction of high titers of neutralizing Abs, which precluded a boost of a CTL response after repeated inoculations. However, repeated injections of virus-infected DC induced only low titers of neutralizing Abs. Furthermore, the presence of neutralizing Abs specific for the virus did not affect the usefulness of infected DC as repeated applications of virus-infected DC boosted the CTL response even in mice previously infected with the recombinant vector. The use of DC infected with a recombinant virus has advantages over other forms of immunization and could provide an alternative approach for designing vaccination therapies.     

Magnetic carbon: Explicit evidence of ferromagnetism induced by proton irradiation

The recently found ferromagnetic signals in pure graphite and in polymerised fullerenes are received mainly with scepticism by most of the scientific community. Actually, before those results were published, there were already several reports claiming an unusually large magnetization in pyrolytic carbon and oxidised fullerenes, without attracting the attention of the community. This scepticism may be well founded since not always a careful and systematic impurity study was provided to quantify the influence of ferromagnetic impurities. In this article and after a brief review of the existing data on magnetic carbon, we present and discuss recently obtained results on the ferromagnetism (or ferrimagnetism) induced by proton irradiation on pure pyrolytic graphite, which strengthen the importance of hydrogen in the formation of the magnetic ordering. The overall results indicate that room-temperature ferromagnetism in carbon-based structures containing only p- and s-electrons is a reality.