The future of bioethanol

Yeasts have been domesticated by mankind before horses. After the mastering of alcoholic fermentation for centuries, yeasts have become the protagonist of one of the most important biotechnological industries worldwide: the production of bioethanol. This chapter will initially present some important challenges to be overcome in this industry, both in first and second generation biofuel production. Then, it will briefly revisit some advances obtained in recent years. Finally, it will present and discuss some opportunities, in the scope of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, that will likely be present in the future of bioethanol

Charmed hadron signals of partonic medium

We present a short review of our results on the collectivity and the suppression pattern of charmed mesons in heavy-ion collisions based on the microscopic Hadron-String Dynamics (HSD) transport approach for different scenarios of charm interactions with the surrounding matter - the 'comover' dissociation by mesons with further recreation by D+Dbar channels and 'pre-hadronic' interaction scenarios. While at SPS energies the hadronic 'comover' absorption scenario is found to be compatible with the experimental data, the dynamics of c and cbar quarks at RHIC are dominated by partonic or 'pre-hadronic' interactions in the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma stage and cannot be modeled by pure hadronic interactions. We find that the collective flow of charm in the purely hadronic scenario appears compatible with the data at SPS energies but underestimates the data at top RHIC energies. Thus, the large elliptic flow v2 of D mesons and the low R_AA(pT) of J/Psi seen experimentally at RHIC have to be attributed to early interactions of non-hadronic degrees of freedom. Simultaneously, we observe that non-hadronic interactions are mandatory in order to describe the narrowing of the J/Psi rapidity distribution from p+p to central Au+Au collisions at the top RHIC energy. We demonstrate additionally that the strong quenching of high-pT J/Psi's in central Au+Au collisions indicates that a fraction of final J/Psi mesons is created by a coalescence mechanism close to the phase boundary.Comment: Talk given at International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM 2008), Beijing, China, 6-10 Oct 200

Non universality of entanglement convertibility

Recently, it has been suggested that operational properties connected to quantum computation can be alternative indicators of quantum phase transitions. In this work we systematically study these operational properties in 1D systems that present phase transitions of different orders. For this purpose, we evaluate the local convertibility between bipartite ground states. Our results suggest that the operational properties, related to non-analyticities of the entanglement spectrum, are good detectors of explicit symmetries of the model, but not necessarily of phase transitions. We also show that thermodynamically equivalent phases, such as Luttinger liquids, may display different convertibility properties depending on the underlying microscopic model.Comment: 5 pages + references, 4 figures - improved versio

Mapping of a Leishmania major gene/locus that confers pentamidine resistance by deletion and insertion of transposable element

Pentamidine (PEN) is an alternative compound to treat antimony-resistant leishmaniasis patients, which cellular target remains unclear. One approach to the identification of prospective targets is to identify genes able to mediate PEN resistance following overexpression. Starting from a genomic library of transfected parasites bearing a multicopy episomal cosmid vector containing wild-type Leishmania major DNA, we isolated one locus capable to render PEN resistance to wild type cells after DNA transfection. In order to map this Leishmania locus, cosmid insert was deleted by two successive sets of partial digestion with restriction enzymes, followed by transfection into wild type cells, overexpression, induction and functional tests in the presence of PEN. To determine the Leishmania gene related to PEN resistance, nucleotide sequencing experiments were done through insertion of the transposon Mariner element of Drosophila melanogaster (mosK) into the deleted insert to work as primer island. Using general molecular techniques, we described here this method that permits a quickly identification of a functional gene facilitating nucleotide sequence experiments from large DNA fragments. Followed experiments revealed the presence of a P-Glycoprotein gene in this locus which role in Leishmania metabolism has now been analyzed.A Pentamidina (PEN) é um composto alternativo para o tratamento de pacientes com leishmaniose que apresentam resistência ao antimônio, cujo alvo celular continua incerto. Uma abordagem para se identificar prováveis alvos seria a identificação e super-expressão de genes capazes de mediar resistência a PEN. A partir de uma genoteca construída com o DNA de Leishmania major em um vetor - cosmídio que se desenvolve tanto em bactérias como nas células do parasita, isolamos um locus que após transfecção é capaz de produzir resistência a PEN às células do parasita. Almejando o mapeamento desse locus de leishmania, o inserto clonado nesse cosmídio foi deletado através de duas digestões parciais sucessivas com enzimas de restrição, seguida de transfecção em células selvagens, super-expressão gênica, indução e testes funcionais na presença de PEN. Para determinar o gene de Leishmania relacionado com a resistência a PEN, o seqüenciamento de nucleotídeos foi executado após inserção de elementos transposicionais de Drosophila melanogaster no interior do inserto deletado para atuar como 'ilhas de iniciadores'. Descrevemos aqui o mapeamento desse locus, após a inserção transposicional, que além de facilitar o seqüenciamento de nucleotídeos de grandes fragmentos de DNA, permite uma rápida identificação do gene relacionado com esse fenótipo. Experimentos posteriores revelaram neste locus a presença do gene de uma Glicoproteína-P de membrana, cujo papel no metabolismo na Leishmania está sendo analisado

Análise sorológica revela circulação de vírus influenza C, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

The circulation of influenza C viruses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was studied when significant levels of antibodies were detected (56.7%) with hemagglutination inhibition test, used as a standard methodology for influenza virus studies.Foi estudada no Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil, a circulação de vírus influenza C detectando-se níveis significativos de anticorpos (56,7%) através de reação de inibição de hemaglutinação, o qual é considerada como padrão para estudos em influenzavíru

Viscerocutaneous form of loxoscelism and erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate deficiency

Em um período de cinco anos, todos os pacientes que exibiram a forma viscerocutânea do loxoscelismo foram investigados para a deficiência de glicose-6 fosfato desidrogenase eritrocitária, e em dois pacientes em um total de sete, esta deficiência foi encontrada. Este achado sugere que esta deficiência enzimática genética poderia ser uma das causas da hemólise que ocorre em decorrência da picada por Loxosceles.In a period of time of five years, all patients who exhibited viscerocutaneous form of loxoscelism were investigated for erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate deficiency, and in two patients out of seven it was found this deficiency. This finding suggests that this genetical enzyme deficiency could account for the hemolysis after Loxosceles bite, at least in some of the cases

Renormalizability of Nonrenormalizable Field Theories

We give a simple and elegant proof of the Equivalence Theorem, stating that two field theories related by nonlinear field transformations have the same S matrix. We are thus able to identify a subclass of nonrenormalizable field theories which are actually physically equivalent to renormalizable ones. Our strategy is to show by means of the BRS formalism that the "nonrenormalizable" part of such fake nonrenormalizable theories, is a kind of gauge fixing, being confined in the cohomologically trivial sector of the theory.Comment: 3 pages, revtex, no figure