The difference between cellulolytic 'culturomes' and microbiomes inhabiting two contrasting soil types.

High-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing was performed to compare the microbiomes inhabiting two contrasting soil types-sod-podzolic soil and chernozem-and the corresponding culturome communities of potentially cellulolytic bacteria cultured on standard Hutchinson media. For each soil type, soil-specific microorganisms have been identified: for sod-podzolic soil-Acidothermus, Devosia, Phenylobacterium and Tumebacillus, and for chernozem soil-Sphingomonas, Bacillus and Blastococcus. The dynamics of differences between soil types for bulk soil samples and culturomes varied depending on the taxonomic level of the corresponding phylotypes. At high taxonomic levels, the number of common taxa between soil types increased more slowly for bulk soil than for culturome. Differences between soil-specific phylotypes were detected in bulk soil at a low taxonomic level (genus, species). A total of 13 phylotypes were represented both in soil and in culturome. No relationship was shown between the abundance of these phylotypes in soil and culturome.

Water Uptake and Transport Properties of La1-xCaxScO3-α Proton-Conducting Oxides.

In this study, oxide materials La1-xCaxScO3-α (x = 0.03, 0.05 and 0.10) were synthesized by the citric-nitrate combustion method. Single-phase solid solutions were obtained in the case of calcium content x = 0.03 and 0.05, whereas a calcium-enriched impurity phase was found at x = 0.10. Water uptake and release were studied by means of thermogravimetric analysis, thermodesorption spectroscopy and dilatometry. It was shown that lower calcium content in the main phase leads to a decrease in the water uptake. Conductivity was measured by four-probe direct current (DC) and two-probe ascension current (AC) methods at different temperatures, pO2 and pH2O. The effects of phase composition, microstructure and defect structure on electrical conductivity, as well as correlation between conductivity and water uptake experiments, were discussed. The contribution of ionic conductivity of La1-xCaxScO3-α rises with decreasing temperature and increasing humidity. The domination of proton conductivity at temperatures below 500 °C under oxidizing and reducing atmospheres is exhibited. Water uptake and release as well as transport properties of La1-xCaxScO3-α are compared with the properties of similar proton electrolytes, La1-xSrxScO3-α, and the possible reasons for their differences were discussed.

Filtering out deep brain stimulation artifacts using a nonlinear oscillatory model.

This letter is devoted to the suppression of spurious signals (artifacts) in records of neural activity during deep brain stimulation. An approach based on nonlinear adaptive model with self-oscillations is proposed. We developed an algorithm of adaptive filtering based on this approach. The proposed algorithm was tested using recordings collected from patients during the stimulation. This was then compared to existing methods and showed the best performance.

Detection of spectral instability in EEG recordings during the preictal period.

The study of EEG recordings during the interval prior to an epileptic seizure onset--the preictal period--is likely to detect changes in the ongoing brain activity consistent with seizure anticipation. A novel index of spectral instability (ISpI) based on multiple abrupt changes of EEG spectral features is presented here. Based on the analysis of control records, robust M-estimates are used to calculate the threshold and avoid false warnings. The results obtained with a small data set (three patients, ten preictal records per patient) have shown that the ISpI index provided a warning flag that anticipated the seizure onset by 13.1 (SD = 4.0) min on average.