Aerobic biodegradation of butanol and diesel oil blends

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)This work aimed to evaluate the aerobic biodegradation of butanol/diesel oil blends (5, 10, 15, 20%, v/v) in comparison to the biodiesel/diesel oil blend (20%, v/v). Respirometric experiments simulating the contamination of natural environments (soil and water from a river) were carried out in biometer flasks (250 mL) used to measure microbial carbon dioxide (CO(2)) production. The automated turbidimeter Bioscreen C was used to follow the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa LBI on butanol/diesel oil blends. A redox indicator (2,6-dichlorophenol indophenol - DCPIP) test was used to evaluate the capability of four inocula to biodegrade the blends with 20% (v/v). The experiment which simulated the soil contamination demonstrated that butanol is less biodegradable than diesel oil, and for this reason the increase in the portion of butanol in the butanol/diesel blend from 5 to 20% had negative effects on biodegradation. While in soil the biodiesel/diesel blend was more easily biodegraded than the butanol/diesel blend, in water this order was the inverse. The insoluble fuels (diesel and biodiesel) were poorly biodegraded in water and the biodegradation of the butanol/diesel blend was favored by the water solubilization of the butanol, which enhances the bioavailability of this compound. On the other hand, initial concentrations of butanol in the water higher than 10 mL L(-1) inhibited the cell growth of the tested microorganisms. Thus, butanol toxicity presumably had a significant effect on the degree of biodegradation of the fuel blends.94270947101Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Agencia Nacional do Petroleo, Gas Natural e Biocombustiveis (ANP) [PRH-05]Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)FAPESP [2007/00341-1, 2007/07049-4]Agencia Nacional do Petroleo, Gas Natural e Biocombustiveis (ANP) [PRH-05

Coastal Upwelling Supplies Oxygen-Depleted Water to the Columbia River Estuary

Low dissolved oxygen (DO) is a common feature of many estuarine and shallow-water environments, and is often attributed to anthropogenic nutrient enrichment from terrestrial-fluvial pathways. However, recent events in the U.S. Pacific Northwest have highlighted that wind-forced upwelling can cause naturally occurring low DO water to move onto the continental shelf, leading to mortalities of benthic fish and invertebrates. Coastal estuaries in the Pacific Northwest are strongly linked to ocean forcings, and here we report observations on the spatial and temporal patterns of oxygen concentration in the Columbia River estuary. Hydrographic measurements were made from transect (spatial survey) or anchor station (temporal survey) deployments over a variety of wind stresses and tidal states during the upwelling seasons of 2006 through 2008. During this period, biologically stressful levels of dissolved oxygen were observed to enter the Columbia River estuary from oceanic sources, with minimum values close to the hypoxic threshold of 2.0 mg L−1. Riverine water was consistently normoxic. Upwelling wind stress controlled the timing and magnitude of low DO events, while tidal-modulated estuarine circulation patterns influenced the spatial extent and duration of exposure to low DO water. Strong upwelling during neap tides produced the largest impact on the estuary. The observed oxygen concentrations likely had deleterious behavioral and physiological consequences for migrating juvenile salmon and benthic crabs. Based on a wind-forced supply mechanism, low DO events are probably common to the Columbia River and other regional estuaries and if conditions on the shelf deteriorate further, as observations and models predict, Pacific Northwest estuarine habitats could experience a decrease in environmental quality

A sonographic spectrum of psoriatic arthritis: “the five targets”

Ultrasound is a rapidly evolving technique that is gaining an increasing success in the assessment of psoriatic arthritis. Most of the studies have been aimed at investigating its ability in the assessment of joints, tendons, and entheses in psoriatic arthritis patients. Less attention has been paid to demonstrate the potential of ultrasound in the evaluation of skin and nail. The aim of this pictorial essay was to show the main high-frequency grayscale and power Doppler ultrasound findings in patients with psoriatic arthritis at joint, tendon, enthesis, skin, and nail level

Binary systems and their nuclear explosions

Peer ReviewedPreprin

MAGIC upper limits on the GRB 090102 afterglow

Indications of a GeV component in the emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are known since the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope observations during the 1990s and they have been confirmed by the data of the Fermi satellite. These results have, however, shown that our understanding of GRB physics is still unsatisfactory. The new generation of Cherenkov observatories and in particular the MAGIC telescope, allow for the first time the possibility to extend the measurement of GRBs from several tens up to hundreds of GeV energy range. Both leptonic and hadronic processes have been suggested to explain the possible GeV/TeV counterpart of GRBs. Observations with ground-based telescopes of very high energy (VHE) photons (E &gt; 30 GeV) from these sources are going to play a key role in discriminating among the different proposed emission mechanisms, which are barely distinguishable at lower energies. MAGIC telescope observations of the GRB 090102 (z = 1.547) field and Fermi Large Area Telescope data in the same time interval are analysed to derive upper limits of the GeV/TeV emission. We compare these results to the expected emissions evaluated for different processes in the framework of a relativistic blastwave model for the afterglow. Simultaneous upper limits with Fermi and a Cherenkov telescope have been derived for this GRB observation. The results we obtained are compatible with the expected emission although the difficulties in predicting the HE and VHE emission for the afterglow of this event makes it difficult to draw firmer conclusions. Nonetheless, MAGIC sensitivity in the energy range of overlap with space-based instruments (above about 40 GeV) is about one order of magnitude better with respect to Fermi. This makes evident the constraining power of ground-based observations and shows that the MAGIC telescope has reached the required performance to make possible GRB multiwavelength studies in the VHE range.</p

Gene therapy for monogenic liver diseases: clinical successes, current challenges and future prospects

Over the last decade, pioneering liver-directed gene therapy trials for haemophilia B have achieved sustained clinical improvement after a single systemic injection of adeno-associated virus (AAV) derived vectors encoding the human factor IX cDNA. These trials demonstrate the potential of AAV technology to provide long-lasting clinical benefit in the treatment of monogenic liver disorders. Indeed, with more than ten ongoing or planned clinical trials for haemophilia A and B and dozens of trials planned for other inherited genetic/metabolic liver diseases, clinical translation is expanding rapidly. Gene therapy is likely to become an option for routine care of a subset of severe inherited genetic/metabolic liver diseases in the relatively near term. In this review, we aim to summarise the milestones in the development of gene therapy, present the different vector tools and their clinical applications for liver-directed gene therapy. AAV-derived vectors are emerging as the leading candidates for clinical translation of gene delivery to the liver. Therefore, we focus on clinical applications of AAV vectors in providing the most recent update on clinical outcomes of completed and ongoing gene therapy trials and comment on the current challenges that the field is facing for large-scale clinical translation. There is clearly an urgent need for more efficient therapies in many severe monogenic liver disorders, which will require careful risk-benefit analysis for each indication, especially in paediatrics

Multifrequency studies of the peculiar quasar 4C+21.35 during the 2010 flaring activity

The discovery of rapidly variable Very High Energy ( VHE; E &gt; 100 GeV). - ray emission from 4C + 21.35 ( PKS 1222+ 216) by MAGIC on 2010 June 17, triggered by the high activity detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope ( LAT) in high energy ( HE; E &gt; 100 MeV). - rays, poses intriguing questions on the location of the. - ray emitting region in this flat spectrum radio quasar. We present multifrequency data of 4C + 21.35 collected from centimeter to VHE during 2010 to investigate the properties of this source and discuss a possible emission model. The first hint of detection at VHE was observed by MAGIC on 2010 May 3, soon after a gamma- ray flare detected by Fermi-LAT that peaked on April 29. The same emission mechanism may therefore be responsible for both the HE and VHE emission during the 2010 flaring episodes. Two optical peaks were detected on 2010 April 20 and June 30, close in time but not simultaneous with the two gamma- ray peaks, while no clear connection was observed between the X-ray and gamma- ray emission. An increasing flux density was observed in radio and mm bands from the beginning of 2009, in accordance with the increasing gamma- ray activity observed by Fermi-LAT, and peaking on 2011 January 27 in the mm regime ( 230 GHz). We model the spectral energy distributions ( SEDs) of 4C + 21.35 for the two periods of the VHE detection and a quiescent state, using a one-zone model with the emission coming from a very compact region outside the broad line region. The three SEDs can be fit with a combination of synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton emission of seed photons from a dust torus, changing only the electron distribution parameters between the epochs. The fit of the optical/UV part of the spectrum for 2010 April 29 seems to favor an inner disk radius of &lt; six gravitational radii, as one would expect from a prograde-rotating Kerr black hole.</p