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Ancient mariners knew that dust whipped up from deserts by strong winds travelled long distances, including over oceans. Satellite remote sensing revealed major dust sources across the Sahara. Indeed, the Bodélé Depression in the Republic of Chad has been called the dustiest place on earth. We analysed desert sand from various locations in Chad and dust that had blown to the Cape Verde Islands. High throughput sequencing techniques combined with classical microbiological methods showed that the samples contained a large variety of microbes well adapted to the harsh desert conditions. The most abundant bacterial groupings in four different phyla included: (a) Firmicutes—Bacillaceae, (b) Actinobacteria—Geodermatophilaceae, Nocardiodaceae and Solirubrobacteraceae, (c) Proteobacteria—Oxalobacteraceae, Rhizobiales and Sphingomonadaceae, and (d) Bacteroidetes—Cytophagaceae. Ascomycota was the overwhelmingly dominant fungal group followed by Basidiomycota and traces of Chytridiomycota, Microsporidia and Glomeromycota. Two freshwater algae (Trebouxiophyceae) were isolated. Most predominant taxa are widely distributed land inhabitants that are common in soil and on the surfaces of plants. Examples include Bradyrhizobium spp. that nodulate and fix nitrogen in Acacia species, the predominant trees of the Sahara as well as Herbaspirillum (Oxalobacteraceae), a group of chemoorganotrophic free-living soil inhabitants that fix nitrogen in association with Gramineae roots. Few pathogenic strains were found, suggesting that African dust is not a large threat to public health.
Microbiological studies on the intercontinental transport of dust are confounded by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient material for analysis. Axenic samples of dust collected at high altitudes or historic specimens in museums are often so small and precious that the material can only be sacrificed when positive results are assured. With this in mind, we evaluated current methods and developed new ones in an attempt to catalogue all microbes present in small dust or sand samples. The methods used included classical microbiological approaches in which sand extracts were plated out on a variety of different media, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based amplification of 16S/18S rRNA sequences followed by construction of clone libraries, PCR amplification of 16S rRNA sequences followed by high-throughput sequencing (HtS) of the products and direct HtS of DNA extracted from the sand. A representative sand sample collected at Bahaï Wadi in the desert of the Republic of Chad was used. HtS with or without amplification showed the most promise and can be performed on ≤100 ng DNA. Since living microbes are often required, current best practices would involve geochemical and microscopic characterisation of the sample, followed by DNA isolation and direct HtS. Once the microbial content of the sample has been deciphered, growth conditions (including media) can be tailored to isolate the micro-organisms of interest.
SMT4-CT98-2238 - A certified reference material for the scratch test - REMAST - Synthesis report
(2002)
Three effects have been observed in wet-thermally grown structures under bombardement with energetic 15N ions: (1) Out-diffusion of H from the SiO2/Si system through the surface, (2) Accumulation of H at the SiO2/Si interface, (3) Changes in the optical fingerprint spectra of Ψ and Δ in dependence on λ (wavelength) obtained by ellipsometric measurements.
Thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) testing plays an increasingly important role in the design, the reliability assessment and the lifecycle management of safety critical components used, for instance, for power generation, in the process industry and in aeronautical and automotive applications, with a view to increasing the fuel efficiency, safety and service intervals, while reducing production (and material) costs. In a European Commission funded research project (acronym: TMF-Standard) of the 5th Framework Programme, 20 European laboratories have undertaken a joint research effort to establish a validated code-of-practice (CoP) for strain-controlled TMF testing. Starting from a survey of the testing protocols and procedures previously used by the partners, a comprehensive pre-normative research activity into various issues has been completed, addressing the dynamic temperature control, the effects of deviations in nominal temperatures and phase angles, the influences of temperature gradients, as well as the practicalities of test interruption and restart procedures. Meaningful allowable tolerances for the various test parameters were identified and practical recommendations as to the test techniques were formulated. From this a preliminary CoP was compiled and used to guide an extensive round robin exercise among the project partners. From the statistical analysis of that exercise, a validated CoP was derived dealing with strain-controlled constant amplitude TMF of nominally homogeneous metallic materials subjected to spatially uniform temperature fields and uniaxial mechanical loading. It is intended to give advice and guidance on the appropriate test setup, testing procedures and the analysis of results, in particular for newcomers in the field of strain-controlled TMF. This paper highlights some of the results of the TMF-Standard project. Moreover, commonalities and differences of the present CoP with respect to the standard documents for strain-controlled TMF, which have been developed at ISO and ASTM levels, are presented in this paper.
High-accuracy film thickness measurements in the range below 100 nm can be made by various complex methods like spectral ellipsometry (SE), scanning force microscopy (SFM), grazing incidence X-ray reflectometry (GIXR), or X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF). The measurement results achieved with these methods are based on different interactions between the film and the probe. A key question in nanotechnology is how to achieve consistent results on a level of uncertainty below one nanometre with different techniques.
Two different types of thickness standards are realised. Metal film standards for X-ray techniques in the thickness range 10 to 50 nm are calibrated by GIXR with monochromatised synchrotron radiation of 8048 eV. The results obtained at four different facilities show excellent agreement. SiO2 on Si standards for SE and SFM in the thickness range 6 to 1000 nm are calibrated by GIXR with monochromatised synchrotron radiation of 1841 eV and with a metrological SFM. Consistent results within the combined uncertainties are obtained with the two methods. Surfaces and interfaces of both types of standards are additionally investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM).