Metagenomic and functional analysis of hindgut microbiota of a wood-feeding higher termite

From the standpoints of both basic research and biotechnology, there is considerable interest in reaching a clearer understanding of the diversity of biological mechanisms employed during lignocellulose degradation. Globally, termites are an extremely successful group of wood-degrading organisms and are therefore important both for their roles in carbon turnover in the environment and as potential sources of biochemical catalysts for efforts aimed at converting wood into biofuels. Only recently have data supported any direct role for the symbiotic bacteria in the gut of the termite in cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Here we use a metagenomic analysis of the bacterial community resident in the hindgut paunch of a wood-feeding 'higher' Nasutitermes species (which do not contain cellulose-fermenting protozoa) to show the presence of a large, diverse set of bacterial genes for cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Many of these genes were expressed in vivo or had cellulase activity in vitro, and further analyses implicate spirochete and fibrobacter species in gut lignocellulose degradation. New insights into other important symbiotic functions including H2 metabolism, CO2-reductive acetogenesis and N2 fixation are also provided by this first system-wide gene analysis of a microbial community specialized towards plant lignocellulose degradation. Our results underscore how complex even a 1-microl environment can be.     

新型钢管砼框架节点试验研究及其应用

给出了钢管混凝土框架节点的试验结果,并采用有限元法对新型节点模式进行了应力场分析。介绍了该新型节点的设计方案及在实际工程中的应用。     

转炉炼钢的物料结构优化

利用60 t转炉研究了采用不同含铁物料及不同比例石灰石炼钢时的钢铁料消耗、氧气消耗量和煤气产生量的变化规律.研究发现：当采用铁水作为原料,渣钢和块矿作为冷却剂时,钢铁料消耗最低,仅为1072.07 kg·t-1;当采用铁水和废钢作为原料,配有磁选渣铁时,钢铁料消耗最高,达到1092.91 kg·t-1;随着石灰石加入量的增加,钢铁料消耗增加,氧耗略有降低,吨钢煤气产生量增加.研究结果为炼钢过程优化物料结构、降低生产成本提供了新的方法.     

中国苏北预先导孔CCSD-PP2片麻岩中锆石的矿物包裹体及其超高压变质作用的证据

采用激光Raman及阴极发光技术,确认中国大陆科学钻探工程预选预先导孔CCSD－PP2几乎所有类型片麻岩中的锆石均保存典型的柯石英包体以及绿辉石、硬玉、石榴石、多硅白云母等矿物包体,表明片麻岩类岩石曾普遍经历了超高压变质作用,该成果对于重新探讨苏鲁超高压变质带的俯冲－折返机制和对中国大陆科学钻探工程的选址有重要的科学意义。     

基于匹配效率和计算精度提升的双目三维树干重建算法改进

针对基于双目立体视觉的自然树木枝干的三维重建过程中二维骨架点的匹配效率低,三维坐标点计算精度不高等问题,在骨架点对应方面,将点匹配代之以更大的枝干匹配,大大缩小了对应点的匹配范围,减少了点匹配次数,提高了匹配效率.三维坐标点计算方面,考虑方程组的几何意义,采用异面直线公垂线中点逼近三维空间点的方法,提高了点坐标的计算精度.     

乳状液膜技术在环境保护中的应用

乳状液膜分离技术是一种新兴的节能型分离手段。介绍了乳状液膜分离技术,综述乳状液膜技术在环境保护方面的应用进展情况。     

Dynamics of collapsing and exploding Bose-Einstein condensates.

When atoms in a gas are cooled to extremely low temperatures, they will-under the appropriate conditions-condense into a single quantum-mechanical state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In such systems, quantum-mechanical behaviour is evident on a macroscopic scale. Here we explore the dynamics of how a Bose-Einstein condensate collapses and subsequently explodes when the balance of forces governing its size and shape is suddenly altered. A condensate's equilibrium size and shape is strongly affected by the interatomic interactions. Our ability to induce a collapse by switching the interactions from repulsive to attractive by tuning an externally applied magnetic field yields detailed information on the violent collapse process. We observe anisotropic atom bursts that explode from the condensate, atoms leaving the condensate in undetected forms, spikes appearing in the condensate wavefunction and oscillating remnant condensates that survive the collapse. All these processes have curious dependences on time, on the strength of the interaction and on the number of condensate atoms. Although the system would seem to be simple and well characterized, our measurements reveal many phenomena that challenge theoretical models.     

Nonlinear limits to the information capacity of optical fibre communications.

The exponential growth in the rate at which information can be communicated through an optical fibre is a key element in the 'information revolution'. However, as for all exponential growth laws, physical limits must be considered. The nonlinear nature of the propagation of light in optical fibre has made these limits difficult to elucidate. Here we use a key simplification to investigate the theoretical limits to the information capacity of an optical fibre arising from these nonlinearities. The success of our approach lies in relating the nonlinear channel to a linear channel with multiplicative noise, for which we are able to obtain analytical results. In fundamental distinction to linear channels with additive noise, the capacity of a nonlinear channel does not grow indefinitely with increasing signal power, but has a maximal value. The ideas presented here may have broader implications for other nonlinear information channels, such as those involved in sensory transduction in neurobiology. These have been often examined using additive noise linear channel models but, as we show here, nonlinearities can change the picture qualitatively.