Batch and Column Studies for the Removal of Lead from Aqueous Solutions Using Activated Carbons from Viticultural Industry Wastes

Adsorption studies (kinetic, batch and dynamic assays) were carried out for lead removal from aqueous solutions using wastes from the wine industry. The adsorbents used were obtained from grape stalk and pomace.These materials were carbonized, briquetted and activated with steam. Addition of a leaching step before activation lowered the high ash content of the materials.The products were characterized by elemental and proximate analysis, point of zero charge pH, specific surface area, pore-size distribution, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and surface acidic and basic groups. Considering the physicochemical and textural properties of the adsorbents, a comparative analysis of the results was made. These solids showed a marked basic character; therefore, the pH was a very important variable in adsorption tests, and thus it was necessary to maintain the pH in a favourable range. Batch equilibrium assays showed that the tested adsorbents had good adsorption capacities, better than the ones reported previously for similar materials. In dynamic tests, the removal of lead by both activated carbon briquettes was good and attributed to the coupling of adsorption and precipitation as a result of the increase in the pH values, which could not be controlled.Fil: Deiana, A. C.. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Gimenez Guerrero, Marianela Gema. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Rómoli, Santiago. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Sardella, Maria Fabiana. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingenieria Quimica; ArgentinaFil: Sapag, Manuel Karim. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico San Luis. Instituto de Física Aplicada; Argentin

Valorization of Tomato Processing by-Products: Fatty Acid Extraction and Production of Bio-Based Materials

A method consisting of the alkaline hydrolysis of tomato pomace by-products has been optimized to obtain a mixture of unsaturated and polyhydroxylated fatty acids as well as a non-hydrolysable secondary residue. Reaction rates and the activation energy of the hydrolysis were calculated to reduce costs associated with chemicals and energy consumption. Lipid and non-hydrolysable fractions were chemically (infrared (IR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS)) and thermally (differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)) characterized. In addition, the fatty acid mixture was used to produce cutin-based polyesters. Freestanding films were prepared by non-catalyzed melt-polycondensation and characterized by Attenuated Total Reflected-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), DSC, TGA, Water Contact Angles (WCA), and tensile tests. These bio-based polymers were hydrophobic, insoluble, infusible, and thermally stable, their physical properties being tunable by controlling the presence of unsaturated fatty acids and oxygen in the reaction. The participation of an oxidative crosslinking side reaction is proposed to be responsible for such modifications.Andalusian Regional Government P11-TEP-7418Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad AGL2015-65246-R and AGL2017-83036-RFondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) AGL2015-65246-R and AGL2017-83036-

Identificación de plantas hospedantes del virus moteado del haba (Vicia faba L.) en el departamento de Nariño.

Presenta los resultados obtenidos al inocular el virus moteado del haba en algunas especies de plantas cultivadas, malezas y algunas indicadoras del virus. El trabajo se llevó a cabo en el Centro de Investigaciones Obonuco (Nariño) en condiciones de invernadero (25 grados centígrados y 80 por ciento de humedad relativa) y en la Universidad de Nariño (14 grados centígrados de temperatura y 60 por ciento de humedad relativa). Se inocularon mecánicamente 21 especies pertenecientes a 6 familias en estado de plántulas, hojas desarrolladas y hojas desprendidas, con diluciones en agua destilada 1:0, 1:10, 1:100 y 1:1000 de savia obtenida de plantas de haba severamente afectadas por el virus del campo. Se pudo establecer que las especies que presentaron síntomas sistémicos mostraron mejor reacción cuando se inocularon en estado de plántula, mientras que síntomas de lesiones locales se manifestaron mejor en hojas desarrolladas. Chenopodium amaranticolor tuvo mejor reacción al virus bajo condiciones de campo, presentando síntomas sistémicos y lesiones locales. Nicotiana rustica presentó lesiones locales y síntomas sistémicos bajo condiciones de invernadero, N. tabacum var. White Burley produjo lesiones locales y Phaseolus vulgaris presentó un mosaico típico diferente al mosaico común y rugoso del fríjol. En las especies que reaccionaron positivamente a la inoculación hubo relación directa entre la concentración del virus inoculado y el número de plantas con síntomas sistémicos y/o número de lesiones localesHaba-Vicia fab

An Approach to Interfacing the Brain with Quantum Computers: Practical Steps and Caveats

We report on the first proof-of-concept system demonstrating how one can control a qubit with mental activity. We developed a method to encode neural correlates of mental activity as instructions for a quantum computer. Brain signals are detected utilising electrodes placed on the scalp of a person, who learns how to produce the required mental activity to issue instructions to rotate and measure a qubit. Currently, our proof-of-concept runs on a software simulation of a quantum computer. At the time of writing, available quantum computing hardware and brain activity sensing technology are not sufficiently developed for real-time control of quantum states with the brain. But we are one step closer to interfacing the brain with real quantum machines, as improvements in hardware technology at both fronts become available in time to come. The paper ends with a discussion on some of the challenging problems that need to be addressed before we can interface the brain with quantum hardware.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades PID2019-104002GB-C21Junta de Andalucía P20-00617Shanghai’s Municipality, China 2019SHZDZX01-ZX04 and 20DZ229090

Structural Analysis of Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus P Protein: Identification of Intrinsically Disordered Domains

Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus P protein plus the viral RNA, N and L viral proteins, constitute the viral replication complex. In this report we describe that HRSV P protein has putative intrinsically disordered domains predicted by in silico methods. These two domains, located at the amino and caboxi terminus, were identified by mass spectrometry analysis of peptides obtained from degradation fragments observed in purified P protein expressed in bacteria. The degradation is not occurring at the central oligomerization domain, since we also demonstrate that the purified fragments are able to oligomerize, similarly to the protein expressed in cells infected by HRSV. Disordered domains can play a role in protein interaction, and the present data contribute to the comprehension of HRSV P protein interactions in the viral replication complex

Carbon dioxide enrichment: a technique to mitigate the negative effects of salinity on the productivity of high value tomatoes

The present study was conducted to determine the mitigating influence of greenhouse CO2 enrichment on the negative effects of salinity in Mediterranean conditions. Hybrid Raf (cv. Delizia) tomato plants were exposed to two salinity levels of the nutrient solution (5 and 7 dS/m) obtained by adding NaCl, and two CO2 concentrations (350 and 800 μmol/mol) in which CO2 enrichment was applied during the daytime according to a strategy linked to ventilation. Increasing water salinity negatively affected the leaf area index (LAI), the specific leaf area (SLA), the water use efficiency (WUE), the radiation use efficiency (RUE) and dry weight (DW) accumulation resulting in lower marketable yield. The high salinity treatment (7 dS/m) increased fruit firmness (N), total soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity (TA), whereas pH was reduced in the three ripening stages: mature green/breaker (G), turning (T), and pink/light red (P). Also, the increase in electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution led to a general change in intensity of the sensory characteristics of tomato fruits. On the other hand, CO2 enrichment did not affect LAI although SLA was reduced. RUE and DW accumulation were increased resulting in higher marketable yield, through positive effects on fruit number and their average weight. WUE was enhanced by CO2 supply mainly through increased growth and yield. Physical-chemical quality parameters such as fruit firmness, TA and pH were not affected by CO2 enrichment whereas SSC was enhanced. Greenhouse CO2 enrichment did mitigate the negative effect of saline conditions on productivity without compromising organoleptic and sensory fruit quality

Efficient multi-fidelity computation of blood coagulation under flow

Clot formation is a crucial process that prevents bleeding, but can lead to severe disorders when imbalanced. This process is regulated by the coagulation cascade, a biochemical network that controls the enzyme thrombin, which converts soluble fibrinogen into the fibrin fibers that constitute clots. Coagulation cascade models are typically complex and involve dozens of partial differential equations (PDEs) representing various chemical species’ transport, reaction kinetics, and diffusion. Solving these PDE systems computationally is challenging, due to their large size and multi-scale nature. We propose a multi-fidelity strategy to increase the efficiency of coagulation cascade simulations. Leveraging the slower dynamics of molecular diffusion, we transform the governing PDEs into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) representing the evolution of species concentrations versus blood residence time. We then Taylor-expand the ODE solution around the zero-diffusivity limit to obtain spatiotemporal maps of species concentrations in terms of the statistical moments of residence time, , and provide the governing PDEs for . This strategy replaces a high-fidelity system of N PDEs representing the coagulation cascade of N chemical species by N ODEs and p PDEs governing the residence time statistical moments. The multi-fidelity order (p) allows balancing accuracy and computational cost providing a speedup of over N/p compared to high-fidelity models. Moreover, this cost becomes independent of the number of chemical species in the large computational meshes typical of the arterial and cardiac chamber simulations. Using a coagulation network with N = 9 and an idealized aneurysm geometry with a pulsatile flow as a benchmark, we demonstrate favorable accuracy for low-order models of p = 1 and p = 2. The thrombin concentration in these models departs from the high-fidelity solution by under 20% (p = 1) and 2% (p = 2) after 20 cardiac cycles. These multi-fidelity models could enable new coagulation analyses in complex flow scenarios and extensive reaction networks. Furthermore, it could be generalized to advance our understanding of other reacting systems affected by flow.MGH, MGV and OF have been partially supported by the Spanish Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund, under grant number PID2019-107279RB-I00. MGH, MGV, PML, JB and OF have been partially supported by the Comunidad de Madrid and the European Regional Development Fund, under grant number Y2018/BIO-4858 PREFI-CM, and by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Regional Development Fund, under grant numbers PI15/02211-ISBITAMI and DTS/1900063-ISBIFLOW. AG, EMcV, AK and JCdA have been partially supported by the US National Institutes of Health, under grant 1R01HL160024. JCdA has been partially supported by the US National Insitutes of Health, under grant number 1R01HL158667