Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a biodegradable material with many potential biomedical applications, including medical implants and drug delivery. This study developed a system for screening production strains in order to optimize PHA production in Cupriavidus taiwanensis 184, 185, 186, 187, 204, 208, 209 and Pseudomona oleovorans ATCC 29347. In this study, Sudan black B staining, Infrared (IR) ...

Metastasis is a primary reason for cancer treatment failure. While a great deal of experimental work has been directed toward metastasis, much of the basic theory remains obscure. In particular, the question of how tumor cells survive to initiate secondary growth at a site distant from their origin despite competition for nutrients from cells in the primary tumor is still open. This thesis addr...

The specific capacitance of a highly porous, nitrogen-doped carbon is nearly tripled by orthogonal optimization of the microstructure and surface chemistry. First, the carbons' hierarchical pore structure and specific surface area were tweaked by controlling the temperature and sequence of the thermal treatments. The best process (pyrolysis at 900 °C, washing, and subsequent annealing at 1000 °...

The environmental drivers contributing to cyanobacterial dominance in aquatic systems have been extensively studied. However, understanding of toxic vs. non-toxic cyanobacterial population dynamics and the mechanisms regulating cyanotoxin production remain elusive, both physiologically and ecologically. One reason is the disconnect between laboratory and field-based studies. Here, we combined 3...

The effect of nitrogen addition and laser fluence on the atomic structure of amorphous carbon films (a-C) synthesized by femtosecond pulsed laser deposition has been studied. The chemical bonding in the films was investigated by means of X-ray photoelectron (XPS) and Raman spectroscopies. XPS studies revealed a decrease in the sp3 bonded carbon sites and an associated increase in the N−sp2C bon...

Simultaneous nitrification denitrification (SND) has been referred to as a biological process for nitrogen removal where nitrification and denitrification occur concurrently in the same aerobic reactor. SND facilities, investigated in this study, have been shown to remove 80 to 96 percent nitrogen without additional carbon and alkalinity. Carbon availability and bulk dissolved oxygen (DO) conce...

Milking center wastewater (MCW) has a relatively low ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C/N ratio), which should be separately managed from livestock manure due to the negative impacts of manure nutrients and harmful effects on down-stream in the livestock manure process with respect to the microbial growth. Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) is linked to inhibition of the second ni...

this study was conducted to determine soil properties that correlate with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (amf) spore numbers in semiarid calcareous soils of hamadan province in northwestern of iran. soil samples from six sites managed differently were collected from a 0 to 30 cm depth. the results showed that land use and management systems had a significant effect on amf spore number in soi...

The variability in the net ecosystem exchange of carbon (NEE) is a major source of uncertainty in quantifying global carbon budget and atmospheric CO2. Soil respiration, which is a large component of NEE, could be strongly influential to NEE variability. Vegetation type, landscape position, and site history can influence soil properties and therefore drive themicrobial and root production of so...

Glutamine synthetase 2 (GS2) is a key enzyme involved in the ammonium metabolism in plant leaves. In our previous study, we obtained GS2-cosuppressed plants, which displayed a normal growth phenotype at the seedling stage, while at the tillering stage they showed a chlorosis phenotype. In this study, to investigate the chlorosis mechanism, we systematically analyzed the plant growth, carbon-nit...