Influence of temperature changes on symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities’ structure: an experimental study on soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum (Anthozoa: Alcyoniidae)

It is well concluded that microbial composition and diversity of coral species can be affected under temperature alterations. However, the interaction of environmental accumulation of corals and temperature stress on symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities are rarely studied. In this study, two groups of soft coral Sarcophyton trocheliophorum were cultured under constant (26 °C) and inconstant (22 °C to 26 °C) temperature conditions for 30 days as control treatments. After that, water was cooled rapidly to decrease to 20 °C in 24 h. The results of diversity analysis showed that symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities had a significant difference between the two accumulated groups. The principal coordinate analyses confirmed that symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities of both control treatments were clustered into two groups. Our results evidenced that rapid cooling stress could not change symbiotic Symbiodiniaceae and bacterial communities’ composition. On the other hand, cooling stress could alter only bacterial communities in constant group. In conclusion, our study represents a clear relationship between environmental accumulation and the impact of short-term cooling stress in which microbial composition structure can be affected by early adaptation conditions.

Using Dynamic Infrared Imaging to Detect Melanoma: Experiments on a Tissue-Mimicking Phantom

In this paper we investigated how the surface temperature distribution reflects the properties of malignant lesions such as the metabolic activity level, the location, and size of lesions, by conducting an extensive experimental study on a skin tissue mimicking phantom developed to validate our numerical model. Experiments were conducted for different dimensions and depths of the thermistor simulating the heat generating lesion. The rate of heat generation was also varied. We found that times immediately after the removal of the cooling stress (up to 2 minutes) are critical for the identification of masses beneath the surface. Additionally, the results indicate that the surface temperature distributions are sensitive to thermistor size. These findings are consistent with the findings of our numerical model.

Influence of a Capping Layer on the Mechanical Properties of Copper Films

The substrate curvature technique was employed to study the mechanical properties of 0.6 μm and 1.0 μm Cu films capped with a 50 nm thick Si3N4 layer and to compare them with the mechanical properties of uncapped Cu films. The microstructures of these films were also investigated. Grain growth, diffusional creep and dislocation processes are impeded by the cap layer. This is evident in the form of high stresses at high temperatures on heating and at low temperatures on cooling. At intermediate temperatures on heating and cooling, stress plateaus a relatively low stresses exist. This can be explained by the so-called Bauschinger effect. A film thickness dependence of the stresses in the film could not be observed for capped Cu films.