Measuring the bacterial growth potential of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) feed water is an issue that is receiving growing attention. This study developed and demonstrated the applicability of the flow-cytometry (FCM)-based bacterial growth potential (BGP) method to assess the biofouling potential in SWRO systems using natural microbial consortium. This method is relatively fast (2-3 days) compared to conventional bioassays. The effect of the potential introduction of nutrients during measurement has been studied thoroughly to achieve the lowest measure value of about 45,000 cells/mL, which is equivalent to about (10 µg-C glucose/L). The BGP method was applied in two full-scale SWRO plants that included (i) dissolved air flotation (DAF) and ultra-filtration (UF); (ii) dual-media filtration (DMF) and cartridge filter (CF), which were compared with the cleaning frequency of the plants. A significant reduction (54%) in BGP was observed through DAF-UF as pre-treatment (with 0.5 mg Fe3+/L), while there was a 40% reduction by DMF-CF (with 0.8 mg Fe3+/L). In terms of the absolute number, the SWRO feed water after DAF-UF supports 1.5 × 106 cells/mL, which is 1.25 times higher than after DMF-CF. This corresponds to the higher cleaning-in-place (CIP) frequency of SWRO with DAF-UF compared to DMF-CF as pre-treatment, indicating that the BGP method has an added value in monitoring the biofouling potential in SWRO systems.Long-chain branched metallocene-catalyzed high-density polyethylenes (LCB-mHDPE) were solution blended to obtain blends with varying degrees of branching. A high molecular LCB-mHDPE was mixed with low molecular LCB-mHDPE at varying concentrations. The rheological behavior of those low molecular LCB-mHDPE is similar but their molar mass and molar mass distribution are significantly different. Those blends were characterized rheologically to study the effects of concentration, molar mass distribution, and long-chain branching level of the low molecular LCB-mHDPE.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/lw-6.html  Owing to the ultra-long relaxation times of the high molecular LCB-mHDPE, the blends exhibited a clearly more long-chain branched behavior than the base materials. The thermorheological complexity analysis showed an apparent increase in the activation energies Ea determined from G', G″, and especially δ. Ea(δ), which for LCB-mHDPE is a peak function, turned out to produce even more pronounced peaks than observed for LCB-mPE with narrow molar mass distribution and also LCB-mPE with broader molar mass distribution. Thus, it is possible to estimate the molar mass distribution from the details of the thermorheological complexity.Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the most common male cancers worldwide. Until now, there is no consensus about using urinary metabolomic profiling as novel biomarkers to identify PC. In this study, urine samples from 50 PC patients and 50 non-cancerous individuals (control group) were collected. Based on 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) analysis, 20 metabolites were identified. Subsequently, principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares-differential analysis (PLS-DA) and ortho-PLS-DA (OPLS-DA) were applied to find metabolites to distinguish PC from the control group. Furthermore, Wilcoxon test was used to find significant differences between the two groups in metabolite urine levels. Guanidinoacetate, phenylacetylglycine, and glycine were significantly increased in PC, while L-lactate and L-alanine were significantly decreased. The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis revealed that the combination of guanidinoacetate, phenylacetylglycine, and glycine was able to accurately differentiate 77% of the PC patients with sensitivity = 80% and a specificity = 64%. In addition, those three metabolites showed significant differences in patients stratified for Gleason score 6 and Gleason score ≥7, indicating potential use to detect significant prostate cancer. Pathway enrichment analysis using the KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) and the SMPDB (The Small Molecule Pathway Database) revealed potential involvement of KEGG "Glycine, Serine, and Threonine metabolism" in PC. The present study highlights that guanidinoacetate, phenylacetylglycine, and glycine are potential candidate biomarkers of PC. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first study identifying guanidinoacetate, and phenylacetylglycine as potential novel biomarkers in PC.Dental trauma are the most common reasons for dental fractures in the anterior area, they have an incidence of 5% in the population, and in permanent teeth, they are mainly caused by sports. The most involved teeth are the maxillary anterior teeth. Direct composite restorations and indirect ceramic restorations are the therapy of choice for restoring anterior teeth after fracture when is not possible to reattach the tooth fragment. The treatment options in uncomplicated coronal fractures depend on various factors such as the amount of residual dentinal enamel tissue, the relationship with the gingival profiles, and the age of the patient. The purpose of this article is to discuss the option of using direct or indirect restorative techniques in the treatment of traumatically fractured anterior teeth and to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods.Formation of gold nanosized particles supported by aluminum oxide film grown on Mo(110) substrate and oxidation of carbon monoxide molecules on their surface have been in-situ studied in ultra-high vacuum by means of Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS), low energy electron diffraction (LEED), atomic force microscopy (AFM), temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), and work function measurements. The main focus was to follow how the thickness of the alumina film influences the efficiency of CO oxidation in an attempt to find out evidence of the possible effect of electron tunneling between the metal substrate and the Au particle through the oxide interlayer. Providing the largest degree of surface identity of the studied metal/oxide system at different thicknesses of the alumina film (two, four, six, and eight monolayers), it was found that the CO oxidation efficiency, defined as CO2 to CO TPD peaks intensity ratio, exponentially decays with the oxide film thickness growth.