H2 production from bioethanol and its use in fuel-cells

Bioethanol was considered as raw material for hydrogen production by steam reforming, coupled with a proton exchange membrane fuel cell for heat and power cogeneration (5 kWelectrical + 5 kWthermal). The water/ethanol feeding ratio and the ethanol purity were considered for process optimisation. An increase of the water/ethanol ratio improved H2 yield at the expenses of higher heat input to the reformer and lower electrical output. However, the presence of a high enthalpy exhaust stream increased the available thermal output, with a consequent increase of the thermal and overall efficiency of the plant. Finally, the bioethanol purification step, which is energy- and cost-intensive, has been taken into account, searching for an optimisation of the bioethanol purification strategy for the overall process intensification

Aplicativo SIGMA EMBRAPA: versão 1.0 para Windows.

O aplicativo SIGMA Embrapa (Sistema de Gerenciamento de Manutenções) foi desenvolvido a fim de informatizar a Área de Manutenção e equipamentos Laboratoriais (AML), permitindo o registro dos serviçoes realizados, pesquisas no banco de dados e geração de relatórios.bitstream/CNPDIA/8890/1/CT28_98.pd

Congenital infiltrating lipoma of the upper limb in a patient with von Willebrand disease

Infiltrating lipoma is a rare variety of lipoma, characterized by an infiltration of the adipose tissue of the muscles. Infiltrating lipomas are usually classified in two groups: intermuscular infiltrating lipoma and intramuscular infiltrating lipoma. Most are acquired, and they usually appear in middle-aged individuals. Exceptionally, they are congenital. In such cases they are not related to other diseases. We report an 8-year-old boy with a congenital infiltrating lipoma of the upper limb and von Willebrand disease. Both diseases are linked to an alteration in chromosome 12, but this clinical association seems to be random rather than causal

Flame-pyrolysis-prepared catalysts for the steam reforming of ethanol

An innovative flame pyrolysis method was employed for the preparation of Ni-based catalysts for the steam reforming of ethanol. Titania and lanthana supports, characterised by variable acidity and Ni loading, were compared as well as the different procedures to add the Ni active phase to the support, thus affecting the metal dispersion. Samples characterisation provided evidence that the one-pot preparation of the catalyst by flame pyrolysis (FP) resulted in the formation of a mixed oxide phase and, thus, in a higher Ni dispersion, even at the highest loading. The metal-support interaction was also strengthened when preparing the samples by FP rather than by conventional impregnation. Steam reforming at 750 \ub0C resulted in full ethanol conversion without by-products, such that a fuel processor able to feed a 5 kWe + 5 kWt fuel cell may operate with ca. 1.35 kg of catalyst. Tests at lower temperature were also carried out, focusing on the optimization of the resistance to coking. The best results at 500 \ub0C were achieved for the FP-prepared sample supported over La2O3 and containing 15 wt% Ni as the active phase

Herpetofauna del Parque Nacional de Monte Alén (Río Muni, Guinea Ecuatorial)

In the framework of a broad study of the vertebrate diversity at Monte Alen National Park (Río Muni, Equatorial Guinea), we identified 16 families, 47 genera, and 65 species of reptiles and seven families, 29 genera, and 56 species of amphibians. 21 species of reptiles and four species of amphibians represent new records for the Río Muni region. We present the preliminary inventory of the herpetofauna as well as some ecological comments. Monte Alén is considered one of the most diverse protected areas in central Africa from a herpetological standpoint.En el marco de un estudio general sobre de la diversidad de vertebrados del Parque Nacional de Monte Alén (Río Muni, Guinea Ecuatorial), se identificaron 16 familias, 47 géneros y 65 especies de reptiles, y 7 familias, 29 géneros y 56 especies de anfibios; 21 especies de reptiles y 4 de anfibios representan nuevos registros para la región de Río Muni. En el presente trabajo se expone el inventario preliminar de especies e información ecológica puntual sobre las mismas. Monte Alén puede ser considerada una de las áreas protegidas de mayor diversidad herpetológica de África central

“Silica and zirconia supported catalysts for the low-temperature ethanol steam reforming"

Ethanol steam reforming has been investigated in the low temperature range, focusing not only on H2pro-ductivity, but also on catalyst stability, very critical parameters under such conditions. Different supports(SiO2and ZrO2), active phases (Ni, Co, Cu) and reaction temperature (300–500◦C) have been employed.Ni confirmed the best performing active phase to promote ethanol decomposition and reforming alreadyat low reaction temperature. However, stability towards coking remains a key problem. The supportplays a key role from this point of view. Indeed, the stabilization of the active phase in very dispersedform allowed to reach stable catalyst performance with time-on-stream. SiO2, thanks to no Lewis acidityand sufficiently strong metal–support interaction, demonstrated an interesting support for Ni under theselected operating condition

A Feature-Driven Active Framework for Ultrasound-Based Brain Shift Compensation

A reliable Ultrasound (US)-to-US registration method to compensate for brain shift would substantially improve Image-Guided Neurological Surgery. Developing such a registration method is very challenging, due to factors such as missing correspondence in images, the complexity of brain pathology and the demand for fast computation. We propose a novel feature-driven active framework. Here, landmarks and their displacement are first estimated from a pair of US images using corresponding local image features. Subsequently, a Gaussian Process (GP) model is used to interpolate a dense deformation field from the sparse landmarks. Kernels of the GP are estimated by using variograms and a discrete grid search method. If necessary, the user can actively add new landmarks based on the image context and visualization of the uncertainty measure provided by the GP to further improve the result. We retrospectively demonstrate our registration framework as a robust and accurate brain shift compensation solution on clinical data acquired during neurosurgery

ContDist: a tool for the analysis of quantitative gene and promoter properties

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The understanding of how promoter regions regulate gene expression is complicated and far from being fully understood. It is known that histones' regulation of DNA compactness, DNA methylation, transcription factor binding sites and CpG islands play a role in the transcriptional regulation of a gene. Many high-throughput techniques exist nowadays which permit the detection of epigenetic marks and regulatory elements in the promoter regions of thousands of genes. However, so far the subsequent analysis of such experiments (e.g. the resulting gene lists) have been hampered by the fact that currently no tool exists for a detailed analysis of the promoter regions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present ContDist, a tool to statistically analyze quantitative gene and promoter properties. The software includes approximately 200 quantitative features of gene and promoter regions for 7 commonly studied species. In contrast to "traditionally" ontological analysis which only works on qualitative data, all the features in the underlying annotation database are quantitative gene and promoter properties.</p> <p>Utilizing the strong focus on the promoter region of this tool, we show its usefulness in two case studies; the first on differentially methylated promoters and the second on the fundamental differences between housekeeping and tissue specific genes. The two case studies allow both the confirmation of recent findings as well as revealing previously unreported biological relations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>ContDist is a new tool with two important properties: 1) it has a strong focus on the promoter region which is usually disregarded by virtually all ontology tools and 2) it uses quantitative (continuously distributed) features of the genes and its promoter regions which are not available in any other tool. ContDist is available from <url>http://web.bioinformatics.cicbiogune.es/CD/ContDistribution.php</url></p