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The etiology of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), like Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), remains unclear. A recurrent theme is a failure to down-regulate a local hyperreactive immune response. Autoimmunity plays a role as circulating antibodies reactive against a protein in colonic epithelial cells are found in patients with ulcerative colitis (Takahasi et al., 1990). Local non-lymphoid cells like macrophages, dendritic cells and epithelial cells could be important in IBD in the pathogenesis and in the uptake and processing of antigen in affected tissue, leading to secondary bacterial infection.

AbstractExtreme precipitation and drought events are predicted to become more intense and more frequent over the Amazon rainforest. Because changes in forest dynamics could prompt strong feedback loops to the global climate, it is of crucial importance to gain insight into the response of tropical forests to these recurring extreme climatic events. Here, we evaluated the Amazon forest stability (resistance and resilience) to drought in the context of past dry and wet climatic events using MODIS EVI satellite imagery and cumulative water deficit anomalies. We observed large spatial differences in the occurrence of extreme climatic events from 1980 to 2019, with an increase in drought frequency in the central and northern Amazon and drought intensity in the southern Amazon basin. An increasing trend in the occurrence of wet events was found in the western, southern, and eastern Amazon. Furthermore, we found significant legacy effects of previous climatic events on the forest drought response. An extreme drought closely preceding another drought decreased forest resilience, whereas the occurrence of a recent drier‐than‐usual event also decreased the forest resistance to later droughts. Both wetter‐than‐usual and extreme wet events preceding an extreme drought increased the resistance of the forest, and with similar effects sizes as dry events, indicating that wet and dry events have similarly sized legacy effects on the drought response of tropical forests. Our results indicate that the predicted increase in drought frequency and intensity can have negative consequences for the functioning of the Amazon forest. However, more frequent wet periods in combination with these droughts could counteract their negative impact. Finally, we also found that more stable forests according to the alternative stable states theory are also more resistant and resilient to individual droughts, showing a positive relationship between the equilibrium and non‐equilibrium stability dynamics.

Southeast Australia experienced intensive and geographically extensive wildfires during the 2019-2020 summer season1,2. The fires released substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere3. However, existing emission estimates based on fire inventories are uncertain4, and vary by up to a factor of four for this event. Here we constrain emission estimates with the help of satellite observations of carbon monoxide5, an analytical Bayesian inversion6 and observed ratios between emitted carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide7. We estimate emissions of carbon dioxide to be 715 teragrams (range 517-867) from November 2019 to January 2020. This is more than twice the estimate derived by five different fire inventories8-12, and broadly consistent with estimates based on a bottom-up bootstrap analysis of this fire episode13. Although fires occur regularly in the savannas in northern Australia, the recent episodes were extremely large in scale and intensity, burning unusually large areas of eucalyptus forest in the southeast13. The fires were driven partly by climate change14,15, making better-constrained emission estimates particularly important. This is because the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide may become increasingly dependent on fire-driven climate-carbon feedbacks, as highlighted by this event16.

Our current view about the relationship between metals and bacteria in marine sediments might be biased because most studies only use ex situ approaches to quantify metals. The aim of the present research was to compare ex situ and in situ methods of metal measurement (DET and DGT--diffusive equilibration or diffusive gradients in thin-films) and relate the results with two commonly used microbiological variables (bacterial biomass and bacterial diversity as revealed by DGGE). No previous studies have used such in situ approaches in microbial ecology. For biomass and most of the investigated trace metals (Ag, Cd, Sn, Cr, Ni, Cu, Pb, and Al) no significant correlations were found. The exceptions were Fe, Mn, Co, and As which behave like micronutrients. For bacterial diversity, no relevant relationships were found. We conclude that in situ methods are more adapted tools for microbial ecologists but that ex situ approaches are still necessary.

Recently, Baratta and Solomonow J. Biomechanics 24, 109-116 (1991) studied the effect of tendon on muscle-tendon complex behavior in cat tibialis anterior (TA) muscle. This was done by determining the relation between neural stimulation and muscle force in a dynamic isometric experiment, both before and after the removal of the distal tendon. From their results, Baratta and Solomonow concluded that in isometric and concentric contractions at mid-range force levels, tendon behaves as a rigid force conductor. This conclusion is in conflict with literature in which several functions are attributed to the elastic behavior of the series elastic element (SEE), of which tendon is the major part. The present study investigates the expected generalizability of their findings, by simulating the experiments using a straightforward Hill-type muscle model. First, model predictions are shown to be in line with the experimental results on cat TA: in dynamic isometric experiments at mid-range force levels, the effect of SEE removal is indeed negligible. Second, the effect of SEE removal is predicted to vary largely among muscles. Third, the most important determinants of the effect of SEE removal in dynamic isometric contractions are shown to be maximum fiber shortening velocity and the ratio of SEE slack length to fibre optimum length.

The rate of ribosomal protein gene (rp-gene) transcription in yeast is accurately adjusted to the cellular requirement for ribosomes under various growth conditions. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this co-ordinated transcriptional control have not yet been elucidated. Transcriptional activation of rp-genes is mediated through two different multifunctional transacting factors, ABF1 and RAP1. In this report, we demonstrate that changes in cellular rp-mRNA levels during varying growth conditions are not parallelled by changes in the in vitro binding capacity of ABF1 or RAP1 for their cognate sequences. In addition, the nutritional upshift response of rp-genes observed after addition of glucose to a culture growing on a non-fermentative carbon source turns out not to be the result of increased expression of the ABF1 and RAP1 genes or of elevated DNA-binding activity of these factors. Therefore, growth rate-dependent transcription regulation of rp-genes is most probably not mediated by changes in the efficiency of binding of ABF1 and RAP1 to the upstream activation sites of these genes, but rather through other alterations in the efficiency of transcription activation. Furthermore, we tested the possibility that cAMP may play a role in elevating rp-gene expression during a nutritional shift-up. We found that the nutritional upshift response occurs normally in several mutants defective in cAMP metabolism.

In this paper the measurement results of a series of standstill frequency response tests, performed at different magnetization levels, are discussed. For each data set an individual model is estimated, which allows the variation of the different parameters to be seen as a function of the saturation. Further, an estimator is presented which uses the different data sets to estimate one global model, including the field to armature turns ratio. Finally the expected error level of a more traditional saturated synchronous machine model is studied.

Abstract This paper represents a novel lithium-ion capacitor model. The proposed model has significantly high accuracy (less 4%). The model is an extension of Zubieta model for EDLCs. The proposed model consists of three capacitors, representing the influence of temperature, current rate (ΔC1) and SoC (ΔC2) on the capacitance of LiCaps, respectively. Unlike to the electrical double-layer capacitors, the model contains two resistances, illustrating the charge and discharge processes. Then, a self-discharge resistance is added to demonstrate the long term effect on the LiCaps capabilities. This model is able to predict the lithium-ion behavior during constant charging and discharging as well as during short pulses duration. The parameters of the model have been derived based on the extended characterization tests that have been carried out. The investigated performance parameters are energy and power abilities, charge and discharge capabilities at different current rates. Furthermore, these parameters have been examined at different working temperatures (60 °C, 40 °C, 25 °C, 0 °C and −18 °C). The experimental results reveal that the type of lithium-ion capacitor used in this work has an energy density about 14 Wh/kg, which is two and half times higher than the used EDLC. These results also indicate similar properties as the electrical double-layer capacitors in the terms of internal resistance and state of charge determination. In contrast to EDLCs, the results show that lithium-ion capacitors suffer considerably at the low temperatures due to lower energy at high current rate. The same characteristics can be observed during discharge phase, due to the occurrence of the Peukert effect. Moreover, series of tests have been carried out at different state of charge values. Here we have found that the capacitance has a polynomial relationship against a linear equation for EDLC and it seems in function of applied current rates. From the point of view of the power capabilities, several approaches have been investigated based on the EDLC and battery methodologies. The results reveal that the power density according to EDLC method is about 1200 W/kg with a pulse efficiency of 90%. However, the W/kg based on the battery method during 2 s pulse is about 500 W/kg. Furthermore, a life cycle test has been done based on the load profile as reported in the forthcoming ISO 12405-2 standard. The preliminary results figure out that the life cycle of the lithium-ion capacitors is decreased with 3.4% till 1400 cycles. Then forward, the capacity reduction is stabilized until 4000 cycles.

Organic hazardous waste often contains some salt, owing to the widespread use of alkali salts during industrial manufacturing processes. These salts cause complications during the treatment of this type of waste. Molten salt oxidation is a flameless, robust thermal process, with inherent capability of destroying the organic constituents of wastes, while retaining the inorganic ingredients in the molten salt. In the present study, molten salt oxidation is employed for treating a typical organic hazardous waste with a high content of alkali salts. The hazardous waste derives from the production of thiotriazinone. Molten salt oxidation experiments have been conducted using a lab-scale molten salt oxidation reactor, and the emissions of CO, NO, SO2, HCl and dioxins are studied. Impacts are investigated from the composition of the molten salts, the types of feeding tube, the temperature of molten carbonates and the air factor. Results show that the waste can be oxidised effectively in a molten salt bath. Temperature of molten carbonates plays the most important role. With the temperature rising from 600 °C to 750 °C, the oxidation efficiency increases from 91.1% to 98.3%. Compared with the temperature, air factor has but a minor effect, as well as the composition of the molten salts and the type of feeding tube. The molten carbonates retain chlorine with an efficiency higher than 99.9% and the emissions of dioxins are below 8 pg TEQ g-1 sample. The present study shows that molten salt oxidation is a promising alternative for the disposal of organic hazardous wastes containing a high salt content.