BACKGROUND The antimicrobial mechanisms of ε-polylysine (EPL) against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus fumigatus biofilm were investigated. MATERIAL AND METHODS We assessed the changes in electric conductivity of broth and total sugar concentration, as well as changes in phosphorous metabolism and protein expression, of the 2 organisms before and after treatment with EPL. RESULTS The expe...

We study here optimal management of dynamic ecological systems that exhibit a destabilizing positive feedback. The prototype example is that of a shallow lake in which phosphorous loading placed by anthropogenic activities (fertilizers for farming and gardening) is stored in sediments until a critical level is reached after which there is a destabilizing return to the water – the tradeoff betwe...

Multiple-phenyl phosphorous compounds are a group of chemical materials that have been used as reactants, pharmaceutical intermediates, extractants, and catalysts in organic synthetic reactions. However, the crystal growth of bulk crystals of multiple-phenyl phosphorous compounds, which may expand their applications in photonics technology, have been largely overlooked. In this article, the cry...

Both nitrate (NO3-N) and ammonia (NH4-N) concentrations are in general highly variable during a lake’s seasonal cycle. During the growing seasonal peak, such concentrations can be very low due mainly to its’ sequestration by phytoplankton. With the aim to study NO3-N and NH4-N mean concentration variation along the increase of the trophic state of lakes, this study simultaneously analyses the i...

The sigma(B)-dependent promoter in front of the rsbV gene of Bacillus subtilis is induced approximately 5-fold in response to (1) the addition of 4% ethanol, (2) carbon starvation, and (3) phosphorous starvation. Binding sites for the global carbon and nitrogen regulators, CcpA and TnrA, were mutated, and the consequences of their loss and that of CcpA or TnrA were studied using rsbV-lacZ fusio...

The study showed that the open water of the Bothnian Sea (BS) is likely to have shifted from altering nitrogen and phosphorous limitations of the spring bloom to more nitrogen-limited conditions during the last 20 years. This is affected by the by inflow of phosphate-rich and oxygen-depleted water from depths near the halocline in the northern Baltic Proper, where severe oxygen conditions curre...

A system dynamics method to assess carrying capacity of a defined natural environment is presented. The proposed method seeks to relate per capita resource usage to ranges of population and per capita consumption beyond which the system is not viable relative to population dependent resource constraints. It provides a platform to investigate system behavior through system dynamics simulations w...

Electrical properties and annealing behaviour of undoped and doped amorphous silicon carbon nitride (a-SiC N ) thin films, x y deposited by ion beam sputtering techniques, have been studied. Doping of the a-SiC N thin films with magnesium (Mg), and x y phosphorous (P) was carried out by ion implantation techniques, and subsequent annealing effect on the electrical conductivity (s) and activatio...