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Reducing antibiotic usage in livestock animals has become an urgent issue worldwide to prevent antimicrobial resistance. Here, abuse of chlortetracycline (CTC), a versatile antibacterial agent, on the performance, blood components, fecal microbiota, and organic acid concentration in calves was investigated. Japanese Black calves were fed milk replacer containing CTC at 10 g/kg (CON) or 0 g/kg (EXP). Growth performance was not affected by CTC administration. However, CTC administration altered the correlation between fecal organic acids and bacterial genera. Machine learning methods such as association analysis, linear discriminant analysis, and energy landscape analysis revealed that CTC administration affected according to certain rules the population of various types of fecal bacteria. It is particularly interesting that the population of several methane-producing bacteria was high in the CON, and that of Lachnospiraceae, a butyrate-producing bacteria, was high in the EXP at 60 d of age. Furthermore, statistical causal inference based on machine learning data estimated that CTC treatment affects the entire intestinal environment, inhibiting butyrate production for growth and biological defense, which may be attributed to methanogens in feces. Thus, these observations highlight the multiple harmful impacts of antibiotics on intestinal health and the potential production of greenhouse gas in the calves.

Natural decomposition of organic matter is essential in food systems, and compost is used worldwide as an organic fermented fertilizer. However, as a feature of the ecosystem, its effects on the animals are poorly understood. Here we show that oral administration of compost and/or its derived thermophilic Bacillaceae, i.e., Caldibacillus hisashii and Weizmannia coagulans, can modulate the prophylactic activities of various industrial animals. The fecal omics analyses in the modulatory process showed an improving trend dependent upon animal species, environmental conditions, and administration. However, structural equation modeling (SEM) estimated the grouping candidates of bacteria and metabolites as standard key components beyond the animal species. In particular, the SEM model implied a strong relationship among partly digesting fecal amino acids, increasing genus Lactobacillus as inhabitant beneficial bacteria and 2-aminoisobutyric acid involved in lantibiotics. These results highlight the potential role of compost for sustainable protective control in agriculture, fishery, and livestock industries.

We developed a new microwave Hall effect measurement method for materials in the skin depth region at low temperatures using a cross-shaped bimodal cavity. We analytically calculated electromagnetic fields in the cross-shaped cavity, and the response of the cavity including the sample, whose property is represented by the surface impedance tensor; further, we constructed the method to obtain the Hall component of the surface impedance tensor in terms of the change in resonance characteristics. To confirm the validity of the new method, we applied our method to measure the Hall effect in metallic Bi single crystals at low temperatures, and we confirmed that the microwave Hall angles coincide with the DC Hall angle. Thus, it becomes clear that the Hall angle measurement under cryogenic conditions becomes possible without any complicated tuning mechanisms, and our bimodal cavity method can be used to measure the microwave Hall effect on materials in the skin depth region. The result opens a new approach to discuss the Hall effect in condensed matter physics such as the microwave flux-flow Hall effect in superconductors., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures

We investigated the superconducting fluctuation in FeSe, which is assumed to be located in the BCS--BEC crossover region, via magnetic torque measurements. In our method, the absolute cantilever displacement is measured by detecting the interference intensity of the Fabry--Perot cavity formed between the cantilever and optical fiber. Our findings are totally different from the results of the previous torque magnetometry using a piezoresistive cantilever; the "giant" fluctuation diamagnetism related to the BCS--BEC crossover does not exist. Instead, a considerably smaller fluctuation signal originating from the vortex liquid was observed that showed a qualitatively similar behavior to those in cuprate superconductors. We also discuss the inconsistency between our torque data and the existence of a pseudogap proposed by an NMR experiment.

In this study, we report a conceptually novel broadband high-frequency electron spin resonance (HFESR) spectroscopic technique. In contrast to the ordinary force-detected ESR technique, which detects the magnetization change due to the saturation effect, this method measures the magnetization change due to the change of the sample temperature at resonance. To demonstrate its principle, we developed a silicon nitride nanomembrane-based force-detected ESR spectrometer, which can be stably operated even at high magnetic fields. Test measurements were performed for samples with different spin relaxation times. We succeeded in obtaining a seamless ESR spectrum in magnetic fields of 15~T and frequencies of 636~GHz without significant spectral distortion. A high spin sensitivity of $10^{12}$~spins/G$\cdot$s was obtained, which was independent of the spin relaxation time. These results show that this technique can be used as a practical method in research fields where the HFESR technique is applicable.

We present a new method for torque magnetometry by using a commercially available membrane-type surface-stress sensor (MSS). This sensor has a silicon membrane supported by four beams in which piezoresistive paths are integrated. Although originally developed as a gas sensor, it can be used for torque measurement by modifying its on-chip wiring. We demonstrate the magnetic-torque measurement of submillimeter-sized crystals at a low temperature and in strong magnetic fields. This MSS can observe de-Haas-van-Alphen oscillation, which confirms that it can be an alternative tool for self-sensitive microcantilevers.

We present a method of broadening the dynamic range of optical interferometric detection of cantilever displacement. The key idea of this system is to use a wavelength-tunable laser source. The wavelength is subject to proportional-integral control, which is used to keep the cavity detuning constant during a measurement. Under this control, the change in wavelength is proportional to the cantilever displacement. Using this technique, we can measure large displacements ($>1\ \mathrm{\mu m}$) without degradation of sensitivity. We apply this technique to high-frequency electron spin resonance spectroscopy and succeed in removing an irregular background signal that arises from the constantly varying sensitivity of the interferometer.

We present a design for a tunneling-current-assisted scanning near-field microwave microscope. For stable operation at cryogenic temperatures, making a small and rigid microwave probe is important. Our coaxial resonator probe has a length of approxomately 30 mm and can fit inside the 2-inch bore of a superconducting magnet. The probe design includes an insulating joint, which separates DC and microwave signals without degrading the quality factor. By applying the SMM to the imaging of an electrically inhomogeneous superconductor, we obtain the spatial distribution of the microwave response with a spatial resolution of approximately 200 nm. Furthermore, we present an analysis of our SMM probe based on a simple lumped-element circuit model along with the near-field microwave measurements of silicon wafers having different conductivities.

It is important for modern scanning microwave microscopes to overcome the effect of the surface roughness. Here, we report microwave conductivity imaging of the phase-separated iron chalcogenide K$_x$Fe$_y$Se$_2$ ($x=0.8$, $y=1.6$-$2$), in which electric conductivity-induced contrast is distinguished from topography-induced contrast using a combination of a scanning tunneling microscope and a scanning microwave microscope (STM-SMM). We observed the characteristic modulation of the local electric property that originates from the mesoscopic phase separation of the metallic and semiconducting phases in two different scanning modes: constant current (CC) mode and constant $Q$ (CQ) mode. In particular, CQ scanning is useful because we obtain a qualitative image in which the topographic contrast is largely eliminated without degradation of the spatial resolution.

We measured the microwave surface impedance of FeSe$_{0.4}$Te$_{0.6}$ single crystals with- and without external magnetic fields. The superfluid density exhibited a quadratic temperature dependence, indicating a strong pair-breaking effect. The flux-flow resistivity behaved as $\rho_f(B\ll B_{\rm c2})/\rho_n=\alpha B/B_{\rm c2}$. The observed $\alpha$ value of $\approx0.66$ was considerably smaller than that of other Fe-based materials ($\alpha\geq1$) and was attributed to a back-flow of superfluids remarkable in disordered superconductors. This is the first-time observation of the back-flow phenomenon caused by an origin other than the vortex pinning in multiple-band systems., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, and 1 table