The yeast species Saccharomyces bayanus and Saccharomyces pastorianus are of industrial importance since they are involved in the production process of common beverages such as wine and lager beer; however, they contain strains whose variability has been neither fully investigated nor exploited in genetic improvement programs. We evaluated this variability by using PCR-restriction fragment leng...

In this work we report on a high-throughput mass spectrometry-based technique for the rapid high-resolution identification of Campylobacter jejuni strain types. This method readily distinguishes C. jejuni from C. coli, has a resolving power comparable to that of multilocus sequence typing (MLST), is applicable to mixtures, and is highly automated. The strain typing approach is based on high-per...

m-Cresol metabolism under sulfate-reducing conditions was studied with a pure culture of Desulfotomaculum sp. strain Groll. Previous studies with a sulfate-reducing consortium indicated that m-cresol was degraded via an initial para-carboxylation reaction. However, 4-hydroxy-2-methylbenzoic acid was not degraded by strain Groll, and no evidence for ring carboxylation of m-cresol was found. Stra...

A yeast strain designated as Y-1 was isolated and characterized from wine yeast ("Jiuqu"). Based on the morphological and biochemical results, along with the rDNA internal transcribed spacer region (ITS), Y-1 was identified to be a Pichia anomala strain. Y-1 is an ethanol-tolerant strain, enduring ethanol concentrations of up to 14 %. Y-1 growth medium conditions were optimized, results showing...

A constitutive equation for nonlinear viscoelasticity is used to model the mechanical response of solid polymers such as polycarbonate. The nonlinearity arises from a reduced time which causes stress relaxation to accelerate with increasing strain. The constitutive equation can account for the occurrence of yield in a homogeneous uniaxial constant strain rate test. The constitutive equation is ...

Fly ash, which consists of hollow particles with porous shells, was introduced into polyurea elastomer. A one-step method was chosen to fabricate pure polyurea and the polyurea matrix for the composites based on Isonate® 2143L (diisocyanate) and Versalink® P-1000 (diamine). Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the fracture surfaces of the composites. Particle size and volume fractio...

The gut microbiota of termites and cockroaches represents complex metabolic networks of many diverse microbial populations. The distinct microenvironmental conditions within the gut and possible interactions among the microorganisms make it essential to investigate how far the metabolic properties of pure cultures reflect their activities in their natural environment. We established the cockroa...

Haemophilus influenzae is a ubiquitous colonizer of the human respiratory tract and causes diseases ranging from otitis media to meningitis. Many H. influenzae isolates express pili (fimbriae), which mediate adherence to epithelial cells and facilitate colonization. The pilus gene (hif) cluster of H. influenzae type b maps between purE and pepN and resembles a pathogenicity island: it is presen...

The atomistic mechanisms of plastic deformation in amorphous metals are far from being understood. We have derived potential parameters for molecular dynamics simulations of Mg–Cu amorphous alloys using the Effective Medium Theory. We have simulated the formation of alloys by cooling from the melt, and have used these glassy configurations to carry out simulations of plastic deformation. These ...

We employ classical molecular dynamics to calculate elastic properties and to model the nucleation and propagation of deformation twins in calcite, both as a pure crystal and with magnesium and aspartate inclusions. The twinning is induced by applying uniaxial strain to the crystal and relaxing all stress components except the uniaxial component. A detailed analysis of the atomistic processes r...