Prediction of vibrations induced by trains on line 8 of Beijing metro

This paper mainly discusses the problem of ground-borne vibrations due to the planned line 8 of Beijing metro which passes under the National Measurement Laboratory.A lot of vibration sensitive equipments are placed in the laboratory.It is therefore necessary to study the impact of vibrations induced by metro trains on sensitive equipments and important to propound a feasible vibration mitigation measure.Based on the coupled periodic finite element-boundary element (FE-BE) method,a 3D dynamic track-tunnel-soil interaction model for metro line 8 has been used to predict vibrations in the free field induced by trains running at variable speeds between 30 km/h and 80 km/h.Four types of track structures commonly used on the Beijing metro network have been considered:(1) high resilience direct fixation fasteners,(2) Vanguard fasteners,(3) a floating slab track and (4) a floating ladder track.For each of these track types,the vibration isolation efficiency has been compared.The results of the numerical study can be used to predict vibrations in nearby buildings and to decide upon effective vibration countermeasures.

An Improved Methodology to Overcome Key Issues in Human Fecal Metagenomic DNA Extraction

Microbes are ubiquitously distributed in nature, and recent culture-independent studies have highlighted the significance of gut microbiota in human health and disease. Fecal DNA is the primary source for the majority of human gut microbiome studies. However, further improvement is needed to obtain fecal metagenomic DNA with sufficient amount and good quality but low host genomic DNA contamination. In the current study, we demonstrate a quick, robust, unbiased, and cost-effective method for the isolation of high molecular weight （〉 23 kb） metagenomic DNA （260/280 ratio 〉 1.8） with a good yield （55.8 ± 3.8 ng/mg of feces）. We also confirm that there is very low human genomic DNA contamination （eubacterial： human genomic DNA marker genes = 227.9：1） in the human feces. The newly-developed method robustly performs for fresh as well as stored fecal samples as demonstrated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing using 454 FLX＋. Moreover, 16S rRNA gene analysis indicated that compared to other DNA extraction methods tested, the fecal metagenomic DNA isolated with current methodology retains species richness and does not show microbial diversity biases, which is further confirmed by qPCR with a known quantity of spike-in genomes. Overall, our data highlight a protocol with a balance between quality, amount, user-friendliness, and cost effectiveness for its suitability toward usage for cultureindependent analysis of the human gut microbiome, which provides a robust solution to overcome key issues associated with fecal metagenomic DNA isolation in human gut microbiome studies.