Generalized commutation relations and Non linear momenta theories, a close relationship

A revision of generalized commutation relations is performed, besides a description of Non linear momenta realization included in some DSR theories. It is shown that these propositions are closely related, specially we focus on Magueijo Smolin momenta and Kempf et al. and L.N. Chang generalized commutators. Due to this, a new algebra arises with its own features that is also analyzed.Comment: accepted version in IJMP

Planctomycetes as Novel Source of Bioactive Molecules

Marine environments are a fruitful source of bioactive compounds some of which are the newest leading drugs in medicinal therapeutics. Of particular importance are organisms like sponges and macroalgae and their associated microbiome. Planctomycetes, abundant in macroalgae biofilms, are promising producers of bioactive compounds since they share characteristics, like large genomes and complex life cycles, with the most bioactive bacteria, the Actinobacteria. Furthermore, genome mining revealed the presence of secondary metabolite pathway genes or clusters in 13 analyzed Planctomycetes genomes.In order to assess the antimicrobial production of a large and diverse collection of Planctomycetes isolated from macroalgae from the Portuguese coast, molecular and bioactivity assays were performed in 40 bacteria from several taxa. Two genes commonly associated with the production of bioactive compounds, nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS) and polyketide synthases (PKS) genes were screened. Molecular analysis revealed that 95 % of the planctomycetes potentially have one or both secondary bioactive genes; 85 % amplified with PKS-I primers and 55 % with NRPS primers. Some of the amplified genes were confirmed to be involved in secondary metabolite pathways. Using bioinformatic tools their biosynthetic pathways were predicted. The secondary metabolite genomic potential of strains LF1, UC8 and FC18 was assessed using in silico analysis of their genomes. Aqueous and organic extracts of the Planctomycetes were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against an environmental Escherichia coli, Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 and a clinical isolate of Candida albicans. The screening assays showed a high number of planctomycetes with bioactive extracts revealing antifungal (43 %) and antibacterial (54 %) activity against C. albicans and B. subtilis, respectively. Bioactivity was observed in strains from Rhodopirellula lusitana, R. rubra, R. baltica, Roseimaritima ulvae and Planctomyces brasiliensis.This study confirms the bioactive capacity of Planctomycetes to produce antimicrobial compounds and encourages further studies envisaging molecule isolation and characterization for the possible discovery of new drugs

Influence of the Precipitating Energetic Particles on Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate

We evaluate the influence of the galactic cosmic rays (GCR), solar proton events (SPE), and energetic electron precipitation (EEP) on chemical composition of the atmosphere, dynamics, and climate using the chemistry-climate model SOCOL. We have carried out two 46-year long runs. The reference run is driven by a widely employed forcing set and, for the experiment run, we have included additional sources of NO x and HO x caused by all considered energetic particles. The results show that the effects of the GCR, SPE, and EEP fluxes on the chemical composition are most pronounced in the polar mesosphere and upper stratosphere; however, they are also detectable and statistically significant in the lower atmosphere consisting of an ozone increase up to 3% in the troposphere and ozone depletion up to 8% in the middle stratosphere. The thermal effect of the ozone depletion in the stratosphere propagates down, leading to a warming by up to 1K averaged over 46years over Europe during the winter season. Our results suggest that the energetic particles are able to affect atmospheric chemical composition, dynamics, and climat

1-D Harmonic Oscillator in Snyder Space, the Classic and the Quantum

The 1-D dimension harmonic oscillator in Snyder space is investigated in its classical and quantum versions. The classical trajectory is obtained and the semiclassical quantization from the phase space trajectories is discussed. In the meanwhile, an effective cutoff to high frequencies is found. The quantum version is developed and an equivalent usual harmonic oscillator is obtained through an effective mass and an effective frequency introduced in the model. This modified parameters give us an also modified energy spectra.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Mechanisms of institutional continuity in neoliberal "success stories" : developmental regimes in Chile and Estonia

© 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. Several mycoplasmas, such as the emergent human pathogen Mycoplasma genitalium, developed a complex polar structure, known as the terminal organelle (TO), responsible for a new type of cellular motility, which is involved in a variety of cell functions: cell division, adherence to host cells, and virulence. The TO cytoskeleton is organized as a multisubunit dynamic motor, including three main ultrastructures: the terminal button, the electrodense core, and the wheel complex. Here, we describe the interaction between MG200 and MG491, two of the main components of the TO wheel complex that connects the TO with the cell body and the cell membrane. The interaction between MG200 and MG491 has a KD in the 80 nM range, as determined by surface plasmon resonance. The interface between the two partners was confined to the >enriched in aromatic and glycine residues> (EAGR) box of MG200, previously described as a protein-protein interaction domain, and to a 25-residue-long peptide from the C-terminal region of MG491 by surface plasmon resonance and NMR spectroscopy studies. An atomic description of the MG200 EAGR box binding surface was also provided by solution NMR. An M. genitalium mutant lacking the MG491 segment corresponding to the peptide reveals specific alterations in cell motility and cell morphology indicating that the MG200-MG491 interaction plays a key role in the stability and functioning of the TO.This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion Grants BFU2012-36827 (to I. F.) and BFU2010-22209-C02-01 (to E. Q.), a grant from the Centre de Referencia de R+D de Biotecnologia (Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain) (to E. Q.), and by FEDER funds through the Operational Competitiveness Programme-COMPETE and by Portuguese national funds through FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027581 (EXPL/BBB-BQB/0546/2012) (to B. C.). The NMR characterization was conducted through the FP7 Access to Research Infrastructures (Bio-NMR Contract 261863) and by Instruct, which is part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and supported by national member subscriptionsPeer Reviewe

Self-consistency in Theories with a Minimal Length

The aim of this paper is to clarify the relation between three different approaches of theories with a minimal length scale: A modification of the Lorentz-group in the 'Deformed Special Relativity', theories with a 'Generalized Uncertainty Principle' and those with 'Modified Dispersion Relations'. It is shown that the first two are equivalent, how they can be translated into each other, and how the third can be obtained from them. An adequate theory with a minimal length scale requires all three features to be present.Comment: typos corrected, published with new title following referee's advic

Microsporogenesis in Brachiaria brizantha (Poaceae) as a selection tool for breeding.

The genus Brachiaria comprises more than 100 species and is the single most important genus of forage grass in the tropics. Brachiaria brizantha , widely used in Brazilian pastures for beef and dairy production, is native to tropical Africa. As a subsidy to the breeding program underway in Brazil, cytological studies were employed to determine the chromosome number and to evaluate microsporogenesis in 46 accessions of this species available at Embrapa Beef Cattle (Brazil)

Occurrence of antibiotics and bacterial resistance in wastewater and sea water from the Antarctic

The potential presence of introduced antibiotics in the aquatic environment is a hot topic of concern, particularly in the Antarctic, a highly vulnerable area protected under the Madrid protocol. The increasing presence of human population, especially during summer, might led to the appearance of pharmaceuticals in wastewater. The previous discovery of Escherichia coli strains resistant to antibiotics in sea water and wastewater collected in King George Island motivated our investigation on antibiotics occurrence in these samples. The application of a multi-residue LCMS/MS method for 20 antibiotics, revealed the presence of 8 compounds in treated wastewater, mainly the quinolones ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin (92% and 54% of the samples analyzed, average concentrations 0.89 μg/L and 0.75 μg/L, respectively) and the macrolides azithromycin and clarithromycin (15% positive samples, and average concentrations near 0.4 μg/L), and erythromycin (38% positive samples, average concentration 0.003 μg/L). Metronidazole and clindamycin were found in one sample, at 0.17 and 0.1 μg/L, respectively; and trimethoprim in two samples, at 0.001 μg/L. Analysis of sea water collected near the outfall of the wastewater discharges also showed the sporadic presence of 3 antibiotics (ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, trimethoprim) at low ng/L level, illustrating the impact of pharmaceuticals consumption and the poor removal of these compounds in conventional WWTPs. The most widespread antibiotic in sea water was ciprofloxacin, which was found in 15 out of 34 sea water samples analyzed, at concentrations ranging from 4 to 218 ng/L. Bacteria resistance was observed for some antibiotics identified in the samples (e.g. trimetropim and nalidixic acid –a first generation quinolone). However, resistance to some groups of antibiotics could not be correlated to their presence in the water samples due to analytical limitations (penicillins, tetraciclines). On the contrary, for some groups of antibiotics detected in samples (macrolides), the antibacterial activity against E. Coli was not investigated because these antibiotics do not include this bacterial species in their spectrum of activity. Our preliminary data demonstrate that antibiotics occurrence in the Antarctic aquatic environment is an issue that needs to be properly addressed. Periodical monitoring of water samples and the implementation of additional treatments in the WWTPs are recommended as a first step to prevent potential problems related to the presence of antibiotics and other emerging contaminants in the near future in Antarctica

Rayleigh-Ritz Calculation of Effective Potential Far From Equilibrium

We demonstrate the utility of a Rayleigh-Ritz scheme recently proposed to compute the nonequilibrium effective potential nonperturbatively in a strong noise regime far from equilibrium. A simple Kramers model of an ionic conductor is used to illustrate the efficiency of the method.Comment: 4 pages, Latex (Version 2.09), 2 figures (Postscript), tar+gzip+uuencoded. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Computational optimization of bioadsorbents for the removal of pharmaceuticals from water

Pharmaceutically active ingredients are among the most persistent wastewater contaminants, resisting to wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) conventional processes, and some of them are proved to pose serious threats to organisms and the environment. In this context, adsorption by activated carbons (AC) is one of the most promising methodologies for the removal of pharmaceuticals from water due to its versatility and high removal efficiency. However, ACs are expensive and therefore not widely applied in WWTP. Primary sludge from paper mills has been previously appointed as a potential inexpensive and renewable source of carbon for AC production by pyrolysis. Computational chemistry may help shed some light into the molecular mechanisms underlying the adsorption of organic pollutants onto ACs. In this context, CarbGen, an online tool for Virtual Porous Carbon (VPC) models creation, was developed and made available for public use. A quantitatively validated model based on both physical and chemical characteristics of an experimentally produced AC is proposed. The produced model is in agreement with obtained experimental data in terms of elemental composition, functional group content and surface area. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) studies were performed on various VPC models with different levels of oxygen content, revealing the importance of electrostatic mechanisms in adsorption, with different degrees depending on the pharmaceutical molecular characteristics. The results further reinforce the importance of functional groups in future VPC models for correct molecular modelling.publishe