Harvesting and transport of root biomass from fast-growing poplar plantations

Abstract

Sequentially aerated membrane biofilm reactors for autotrophic nitrogen removal: microbial community composition and dynamics

Membrane-aerated biofilm reactors performing autotrophic nitrogen removal can be successfully applied to treat concentrated nitrogen streams. However, their process performance is seriously hampered by the growth of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). In this work we document how sequential aeration can bring the rapid and long-term suppression of NOB and the onset of the activity of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB). Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses confirmed that such shift in performance was mirrored by a change in population densities, with a very drastic reduction of the NOB Nitrospira and Nitrobacter and a 10-fold increase in AnAOB numbers. The study of biofilm sections with relevant 16S rRNA fluorescent probes revealed strongly stratified biofilm structures fostering aerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in biofilm areas close to the membrane surface (rich in oxygen) and AnAOB in regions neighbouring the liquid phase. Both communities were separated by a transition region potentially populated by denitrifying heterotrophic bacteria. AOB and AnAOB bacterial groups were more abundant and diverse than NOB, and dominated by the r-strategists Nitrosomonas europaea and Ca. Brocadia anammoxidans, respectively. Taken together, the present work presents tools to better engineer, monitor and control the microbial communities that support robust, sustainable and efficient nitrogen removal

Senescence rates are determined by ranking on the fast-slow life-history continuum.

Comparative analyses of survival senescence by using life tables have identified generalizations including the observation that mammals senesce faster than similar-sized birds. These generalizations have been challenged because of limitations of life-table approaches and the growing appreciation that senescence is more than an increasing probability of death. Without using life tables, we examine senescence rates in annual individual fitness using 20 individual-based data sets of terrestrial vertebrates with contrasting life histories and body size. We find that senescence is widespread in the wild and equally likely to occur in survival and reproduction. Additionally, mammals senesce faster than birds because they have a faster life history for a given body size. By allowing us to disentangle the effects of two major fitness components our methods allow an assessment of the robustness of the prevalent life-table approach. Focusing on one aspect of life history - survival or recruitment - can provide reliable information on overall senescence.

A fast automated screening method for the detection of blood transfusion in sports.

Currently, there is no simple direct screening method for the misuse of blood transfusions in sports. In this study, we investigated whether the measurement of iron in EDTA-plasma can serve as biomarker for such purpose. Our results revealed an increase of the plasma iron level up to 25-fold 6 h after blood re-infusion. The variable remained elevated 10-fold one day after the procedure. A specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 93% were obtained with a proposed threshold at 45 µg/dL of plasma iron. Therefore, our test could be used as a simple, cost effective biomarker for the screening for blood transfusion misuse in sports. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Impact of restrictive intravenous fluid replacement and combined epidural analgesia on perioperative volume balance and renal function within a Fast Track program.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Key factors of Fast Track (FT) programs are fluid restriction and epidural analgesia (EDA). We aimed to challenge the preconception that the combination of fluid restriction and EDA might induce hypotension and renal dysfunction. METHODS: A recent randomized trial (NCT00556790) showed reduced complications after colectomy in FT patients compared with standard care (SC). Patients with an effective EDA were compared with regard to hemodynamics and renal function. RESULTS: 61/76 FT patients and 59/75 patients in the SC group had an effective EDA. Both groups were comparable regarding demographics and surgery-related characteristics. FT patients received significantly less i.v. fluids intraoperatively (1900 mL [range 1100-4100] versus 2900 mL [1600-5900], P < 0.0001) and postoperatively (700 mL [400-1500] versus 2300 mL [1800-3800], P < 0.0001). Intraoperatively, 30 FT compared with 19 SC patients needed colloids or vasopressors, but this was statistically not significant (P = 0.066). Postoperative requirements were low in both groups (3 versus 5 patients; P = 0.487). Pre- and postoperative values for creatinine, hematocrit, sodium, and potassium were similar, and no patient developed renal dysfunction in either group. Only one of 82 patients having an EDA without a bladder catheter had urinary retention. Overall, FT patients had fewer postoperative complications (6 versus 20 patients; P = 0.002) and a shorter median hospital stay (5 [2-30] versus 9 d [6-30]; P< 0.0001) compared with the SC group. CONCLUSIONS: Fluid restriction and EDA in FT programs are not associated with clinically relevant hemodynamic instability or renal dysfunction.

Fast Track and Fast Track II - Cedar Rapids, Iowa, HR-544, Construction Report, 1989

Two lanes of a major four lane arterial street needed to be reconstructed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The traffic volumes and difficulty of detouring the traffic necessitated closure for construction be held to an absolute minimum. Closure of the intersections, even for one day, was not politically feasible. Therefore, Fast Track and Fast Track II was specified for the project. Fast Track concrete paving has been used successfully in Iowa since 1986. The mainline portion of the project was specified to be Fast Track and achieved the opening strength of 400 psi in less than twelve hours. The intersections were allowed to be closed between 6 PM and 6 AM. This could occur twice - once to remove the old pavement and place the base and temporary surface and the second time to pave and cure the new concrete. The contractor was able to meet these restrictions. The Fast Track II used in the intersections achieved the opening strength of 350 psi in six to seven hours. Two test sections were selected in the mainline Fast Track and two intersections were chosen to test the Fast Tract II. Both flexural and compression specimens were tested. Pulse velocity tests were conducted on the pavement and test specimens. Maturity curves were developed through monitoring of the temperatures. Correlations were performed between the maturity and pulse velocity and the flexural strengths. The project was successful in establishing the feasibility of construction at night, with no disruption of traffic in the daytime, using fast Track II. Both the Fast Track II pavements were performing well four years after construction.

Optimization strategies for fast detection of positive selection on phylogenetic trees.

MOTIVATION: The detection of positive selection is widely used to study gene and genome evolution, but its application remains limited by the high computational cost of existing implementations. We present a series of computational optimizations for more efficient estimation of the likelihood function on large-scale phylogenetic problems. We illustrate our approach using the branch-site model of codon evolution. RESULTS: We introduce novel optimization techniques that substantially outperform both CodeML from the PAML package and our previously optimized sequential version SlimCodeML. These techniques can also be applied to other likelihood-based phylogeny software. Our implementation scales well for large numbers of codons and/or species. It can therefore analyse substantially larger datasets than CodeML. We evaluated FastCodeML on different platforms and measured average sequential speedups of FastCodeML (single-threaded) versus CodeML of up to 5.8, average speedups of FastCodeML (multi-threaded) versus CodeML on a single node (shared memory) of up to 36.9 for 12 CPU cores, and average speedups of the distributed FastCodeML versus CodeML of up to 170.9 on eight nodes (96 CPU cores in total).Availability and implementation: ftp://ftp.vital-it.ch/tools/FastCodeML/. CONTACT: selectome@unil.ch or nicolas.salamin@unil.ch.

Interrogating eleven fast-evolving genes for signatures of recent positive selection in worldwide human populations

Different signatures of natural selection persist over varying time scales in our genome, revealing possible episodes of adaptative evolution during human history. Here, we identify genes showing signatures of ancestral positive selection in the human lineage and investigate whether some of those genes have been evolving adaptatively in extant human populations. Specifically, we compared more than 11,000 human genes with their orthologs inchimpanzee, mouse, rat and dog and applied a branch-site likelihood method to test for positive selection on the human lineage. Among the significant cases, a robust set of 11 genes were then further explored for signatures of recent positive selection using SNP data. We genotyped 223 SNPs in 39 worldwide populations from the HGDP Diversity panel and supplemented this information with available genotypes for up to 4,814 SNPs distributed along 2 Mb centered on each gene. After exploring the allele frequency spectrum, population differentiation and the maintainance of long unbroken haplotypes, we found signals of recent adaptative phenomena in only one of the 11 candidate gene regions. However, the signal ofrecent selection in this region may come from a different, neighbouring gene (CD5) ratherthan from the candidate gene itself (VPS37C). For this set of positively-selected genes in thehuman lineage, we find no indication that these genes maintained their rapid evolutionarypace among human populations. Based on these data, it therefore appears that adaptation forhuman-specific and for population-specific traits may have involved different genes.

Fast Bias Field Correction for 9.4 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging

In this paper the problem of intensity inhomogeneity athigh magnetic field on magnetic resonance images isaddressed. Specifically, rat brain images at 9.4Tacquired with a surface coil are bias corrected. Wepropose a low- pass frequency model that takes intoaccount not only background-object contours but alsoother important contours inside the image. Twopre-processing filters are proposed: first, to create avolume of interest without contours, and second, toextrapolate the image values of such masked area to thewhole image. Results are assessed quantitatively andvisually in comparison to standard low pass filterapproach, and they show as expected better accuracy inenhancing image intensity.

Implementation of population balances in simulation of gas-liquid reactors using a CFD-PBM coupled approach

In bubbly flow simulations, bubble size distribution is an important factor in determination of hydrodynamics. Beside hydrodynamics, it is crucial in the prediction of interfacial area available for mass transfer and in the prediction of reaction rate in gas-liquid reactors such as bubble columns. Solution of population balance equations is a method which can help to model the size distribution by considering continuous bubble coalescence and breakage. Therefore, in Computational Fluid Dynamic simulations it is necessary to couple CFD and Population Balance Model (CFD-PBM) to get reliable distribution. In the current work a CFD-PBM coupled model is implemented as FORTRAN subroutines in ANSYS CFX 10 and it has been tested for bubbly flow. This model uses the idea of Multi Phase Multi Size Group approach which was previously presented by Sha et al. (2006) [18]. The current CFD-PBM coupled method considers inhomogeneous flow field for different bubble size groups in the Eulerian multi-dispersed phase systems. Considering different velocity field for bubbles can give the advantageof more accurate solution of hydrodynamics. It is also an improved method for prediction of bubble size distribution in multiphase flow compared to available commercial packages.

APROS code benchmarking inboiling water reactor accident analyses

Diplomityö käsittelee kiehutusvesilaitosten transienttien ja onnettomuuksien analysointia APROS-ohjelmiston avulla. Työ on tehty Teollisuuden Voima Oy:n (TVO) Olkiluoto 1 ja 2 laitosyksiköiden mallin pohjalta. Raportissa esitetään ohjelmiston käyttämiä yhtälöitäja laskentamalleja yleisellä tasolla. Työssä esitellään laitoksen yleispiirteet turvallisuustoimintoineen ja kuvataan ohjelmaan suureksi osaksi aiemmin luotua laskentamallia. Työssä on luetteloitu voimassa olevatlisensiointianalyysit, joiden joukosta on valittu laskentatapauksia ohjelmiston suorituskyvyn arviointia varten. Lisäksi työhön on valittu laskentatapauksia muilla kuin lisensointiin käytetyillä ohjelmilla lasketuista analyyseistä. Lisäksi on suoritettu vertailulaskuja konservatiivisen ja realistisen mallin erojen esille saamiseksi. Laskentatapauksia ovat mm. ylipainetransientti, jäähdytteen menetysonnettomuus ja oletettavissa oleva käyttöhäiriö, jossa pikasulku ei toimi (ATWS). Diplomityön edetessä laitosmallia on kehitetty edelleen lisäämällä joitakin järjestelmiä ja tarkentamalla joidenkin komponenttien kuvausta. Työssä ilmeni, että APROS soveltuu jäähdytteenmenetysonnettomuuden ja suojarakennuksen yhtäaikaiseen analyysiin. APROS.n vaste nopeisiin transientteihin jäi kuitenkin vertailutasosta. Tämän työn perusteella APROS-mallia kehitys jatkuu edelleen siten, että se soveltuisi entistä paremmin myös nopeiden transienttien ja ATWS-tilanteiden kuvaamiseen. Työssä olevaa lisensointianalyysien kuvausta tullaan käyttämään hyväksi selvitettäessä laitoksen turvallisuuden väliarviossa tarvittavien analyysien määrää ja laatua. Nyt saatuja kokemuksia voidaan hyödyntää myös mahdollisen kolmiulotteisen sydänmallin hankinnassa APROS-ohjelmistoon. Tässä diplomityössä esitettyjä parannuksia voidaan käyttää hyväksi SAFIRtutkimusohjelman hankkeiden suunnittelussa.

Fast gas chromatography and negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry for forensic analysis of cannabinoids in whole blood.

The present work describes a fast gas chromatography/negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometric assay (Fast GC/NICI-MS/MS) for analysis of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), 11-hydroxy-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-OH) and 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-COOH) in whole blood. The cannabinoids were extracted from 500 microL of whole blood by a simple liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and then derivatized by using trifluoroacetic anhydride (TFAA) and hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP) as fluorinated agents. Mass spectrometric detection of the analytes was performed in the selected reaction-monitoring mode on a triple quadrupole instrument after negative-ion chemical ionization. The assay was found to be linear in the concentration range of 0.5-20 ng/mL for THC and THC-OH, and of 2.5-100 ng/mL for THC-COOH. Repeatability and intermediate precision were found less than 12% for all concentrations tested. Under standard chromatographic conditions, the run cycle time would have been 15 min. By using fast conditions of separation, the assay analysis time has been reduced to 5 min, without compromising the chromatographic resolution. Finally, a simple approach for estimating the uncertainty measurement is presented.

Flow phenomena, heat and mass transfer in microchannel reactors

The studies of flow phenomena, heat and mass transfer in microchannel reactors are beneficial to estimate and evaluate the ability of microchannel reactors to be operated for a given process reaction such as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The flow phenomena, for example, the flow regimes and flow patterns in microchannel reactors for both single phase and multiphase flow are affected by the configuration of the flow channel. The reviews of the previous works about the analysis of related parameters that affect the flow phenomena are shown in this report. In order to predict the phenomena of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in microchannel reactors, the 3-dimensional computational fluid dynamic simulation with commercial software package FLUENT was done to study the flow phenomena and heat transfer for gas phase Fischer-Tropsch products flow in rectangular microchannel with hydraulic diameter 500 ¿m and length 15 cm. Numerical solution with slip boundary condition was used in the simulation and the flowphenomena and heat transfer were determined.