Economic Feasibility of Utilizing Waste-Water Heat from Coal-Fired Electrical Generating Plants in Commercial Greenhouses in North Dakota

This study provides information on the economic feasibility of establishing commercial greenhouses utilizing waste-water heat in North Dakota.Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

High-Frequency network activity, global increase in Neuronal Activity, and Synchrony Expansion Precede Epileptic Seizures In Vitro

How seizures start is a major question in epilepsy research. Preictal EEG changes occur in both human patients and animal models, but their underlying mechanisms and relationship with seizure initiation remain unknown. Here we demonstrate the existence, in the hippocampal CA1 region, of a preictal state characterized by the progressive and global increase in neuronal activity associated with a widespread buildup of low-amplitude high-frequency activity (HFA) (100 Hz) and reduction in system complexity.HFAis generated by the firing of neurons, mainly pyramidal cells, at much lower frequencies. Individual cycles ofHFAare generated by the near-synchronous (within 5 ms) firing of small numbers of pyramidal cells. The presence of HFA in the low-calcium model implicates nonsynaptic synchronization; the presence of very similar HFA in the high-potassium model shows that it does not depend on an absence of synaptic transmission. Immediately before seizure onset, CA1 is in a state of high sensitivity in which weak depolarizing or synchronizing perturbations can trigger seizures. Transition to seizure is haracterized by a rapid expansion and fusion of the neuronal populations responsible for HFA, associated with a progressive slowing of HFA, leading to a single, massive, hypersynchronous cluster generating the high-amplitude low-frequency activity of the seizure

The role of Turbulent Convection and wind in Geostrophic Circulation: Direct Numerical Simulation Study

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are used over a three-dimensional rotating basin under geostrophic rotation, in order to understand the relative roles of buoyancy and wind stress on the heat and mass transport. Our main focus is on the large Rayleigh number regime (Ra, being the measure of buoyancy forcing) which is the order of 1012 to sustain turbulent convection. We also maintained small values of convective Rossby number Ro ~ 0.1 at a fixed Prandtl number, Pr ~ 5 while imposing a meridional wind stress pattern

Захисні лісові насадження – важливий структурний елемент у формуванні національної екологічної мережі

Описано роль і значення захисних лісових насаджень як важливого структурного елементу при формуванні національної екологічної мережі.Описана роль и значение защитных лесных насаждений как важного структурного элемента при формировании национальной экологической сети.Role and meaning of forest protective stands as an important structural element for national ecological network formation is described

Cloning characterisation and expression of a G-protein-couple receptor from Lymnaea stagnalis and identification of a leucokinin-like peptide PSFHSWSamide as its endogenous ligand

No description supplie

Andreev reflection at QGP/CFL interface

In this letter we address the question of the phenomena of Andreev reflection between the cold quark-gluon plasma phase and CFL color superconductor. We show that there are two different types of reflections connected to the structure of the CFL phase. We also calculate the probability current at the interface and we show that it vanishes for energy of scattering quarks below the superconducting gap.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Minor changes in the "Conclusions

Exploring metabolic engineering design principles for the photosynthetic production of lactic acid by Synechocystis sp. PCC6803

Background: Molecular engineering of the intermediary physiology of cyanobacteria has become important for the sustainable production of biofuels and commodity compounds from CO2 and sunlight by "designer microbes." The chemical commodity product L-lactic acid can be synthesized in one step from a key intermediary metabolite of these organisms, pyruvate, catalyzed by a lactate dehydrogenase. Synthetic biology engineering to make "designer microbes" includes the introduction and overexpression of the product-forming biochemical pathway. For further optimization of product formation, modifications in the surrounding biochemical network of intermediary metabolism have to be made. Results: To improve light-driven L-lactic acid production from CO2, we explored several metabolic engineering design principles, using a previously engineered L-lactic acid producing mutant strain of Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 as the benchmark. These strategies included: (i) increasing the expression level of the relevant product-forming enzyme, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), for example, via expression from a replicative plasmid; (ii) co-expression of a heterologous pyruvate kinase to increase the flux towards pyruvate; and (iii) knockdown of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase to decrease the flux through a competing pathway (from phosphoenolpyruvate to oxaloacetate). In addition, we tested selected lactate dehydrogenases, some of which were further optimized through site-directed mutagenesis to improve the enzyme’s affinity for the co-factor nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). The carbon partitioning between biomass and lactic acid was increased from about 5% to over 50% by strain optimization. Conclusion: An efficient photosynthetic microbial cell factory will display a high rate and extent of conversion of substrate (CO2) into product (here: L-lactic acid). In the existing CO2-based cyanobacterial cell factories that have been described in the literature, by far most of the control over product formation resides in the genetically introduced fermentative pathway. Here we show that a strong promoter, in combination with increased gene expression, can take away a significant part of the control of this step in lactic acid production from CO2. Under these premises, modulation of the intracellular precursor, pyruvate, can significantly increase productivity. Additionally, production enhancement is achieved by protein engineering to increase co-factor specificity of the heterologously expressed LDH

R-h-erythropoietin counteracts the inhibition of in vitro erythropoiesis by tumour necrosis factor alpha in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Anaemia of chronic disease (ACD) is a common extra-articular manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) plays an important role in the development of ACD. The objective of the present study was to assess inhibition of in vitro colony-forming unit erythrocyte (CFUe) and blast-forming unit erythrocyte (BFUe) growth by TNFα and to examine whether this suppression could be counteracted by adding increasing concentrations of recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) (r-h-EPO) to bone marrow cultures of RA patients with ACD and without anaemia (controls). Bone marrow cells of RA patients with ACD and control patients were cultured. The cultures were incubated with increasing concentrations of r-h-EPO (0.25; 0.5; 1; 2 U/ml), each in combination with increasing quantities of TFNα (0; 50; 100; 200; 400 U/ml). CFUe and BFUe were assessed after 7 and 14 days, respectively. Dose-dependent inhibition of BFUe and CFUc by increasing concentrations of TNFα was observed in ACD and controls. Regarding CFUe (ACD patients) incubated with 0.25 U/ml EPO, 50 U/ml TNFα caused 28% suppression compared to cultures without TNFα. Increasing the concentration of r-h-EPO from 0.25 U/ml to 2 U/ml completely restored the number of CFUe. A similar pattern was observed in BFUe growth in both groups. These data demonstrated the suppressive effects of TNFα on erythropoiesis in vitro and that the suppresed erythropoiesis could be partly corrected by the addition of excess r-h-EPO to the cultures. No significant differences were observed between ACD and control RA patients. This in vitro model may help explain the clinical response to r-h-EPO therapy as documented in RA patients with ACD

Genetic engineering of Synechocystis PCC6803 for the photoautotrophic production of the sweetener erythritol

BACKGROUND: Erythritol is a polyol that is used in the food and beverage industry. Due to its non-caloric and non-cariogenic properties, the popularity of this sweetener is increasing. Large scale production of erythritol is currently based on conversion of glucose by selected fungi. In this study, we describe a biotechnological process to produce erythritol from light and CO2, using engineered Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. METHODS: By functionally expressing codon-optimized genes encoding the erythrose-4-phosphate phosphatase TM1254 and the erythrose reductase Gcy1p, or GLD1, this cyanobacterium can directly convert the Calvin cycle intermediate erythrose-4-phosphate into erythritol via a two-step process and release the polyol sugar in the extracellular medium. Further modifications targeted enzyme expression and pathway intermediates. CONCLUSIONS: After several optimization steps, the best strain, SEP024, produced up to 2.1 mM (256 mg/l) erythritol, excreted in the medium