Chemo-enzymatic saccharification strategy of microalgae chlorella sorokiniana

Biofuel production using microalgae attracted much attention because it can be cultured using CO2 and sunlight. With high carbohydrate content, microalgae have the potential to be used as a fermentation feedstock for bioethanol production. In present work, chemo-enzymatic saccharification of Chlorella sorokiniana microalgae were investigated. Chemical hydrolysis of the biomass followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and was also evaluated the effect of combining the two enzymes and the sequential addition. The effect of α-amylase concentrations was analyzed in ranged between 50 and 8000 U/g of biomass and for amyloglucosidase between 90 and 600 U/g of biomass. The higher concentrations showed the highest conversion of reducing sugars. The α-amylase concentration 8000 U/g of biomass presented a conversion of 43.06 ± 2.92% (w/w), while amyloglucosidase with 600 U/g of biomass obtained 76.57 ± 6.42% (w/w). The combination of two enzymes simultaneously was more efficient than the sequential addition for low enzyme concentrations (α-amylase 50 U/g and amyloglucosidase 90 U/g) with a total reducing sugar of 22.78 ± 3.06 and 16.92 ± 2.06% (w/w), respectively. On the other hand, using the higher enzymes concentrations, no difference was observed between the two addition strategies, 58.9 ± 3.55 and 57.05 ± 2.33% (w/w) for the sequential and simultaneous, respectively. Both strategies didn’t present advantage, since the amyloglucosidase enzyme alone produced slightly higher results. Even thought, the obtained results showed successfully performed saccharification of microalgal biomass and clearly point to microalgae use for saccharification and subsequent bioethanol production.Part of this work has been supported by European governments (INTERREG VA-POCTEP- 2014-2020; 0055_ALGARED_PLUS_5_E) and the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) through the grant UID/MAR/00350/2013 to the CIMA of the University of Algarve.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sekolah sebagai Alat Politik (Telaah terhadap Persoalan Pendidikan di Indonesia)

Tidak berlebihan bila ada statement “Pendidikan merupakan soft power”, kekuatan sejati yang tidak terlihat secara kasat mata tetapi semua orang membutuhkan dan turut merasakan kekuatannya. Pendidikan memberikan kontribusi dan pengaruh politis yang amat besar dalam tatanan kehidupan manusia. Karena itu jangan jadikan pendidikan sebagai alat politik. Pendidikan yang ideal tentu akan melahirkan manusia ideal. Manusia yang sehat, berpendidikan dan berakhlak baik merupakan manusia ideal yang diharapkan akan mampu mengambil peran dan mendidikasikan dirinya untuk mengubah pendidikan menjadi media berpolitik adiluhung atau politik yang beriman dan berbudi pekerti luhur dan sekaligus mampu mendidik politik lewat pendidikan. Pendidikan politik dan politik pendidikan seharusnya tidak saling bermusuhan akan tetapi dapat saling berintegrasi dan berinterkoneksi. Harapan ini diharapkan dapat diwujudkan oleh lembaga pendidikan yang bernama sekolah.Akan tetapi jika sekolah masih diposisikan sebagai alat politik, maka pendidikan politik bagi generasi muda di negeri ini akan mengalami penurununan kualitas dan bahkan mungkin lebih parah lagi. Kebebasan memilih pendidikan yang berkualitas tanpa dibebani biaya yang mahal adalah salah satu harapan di samping peningkatan kualitas dan pemerataan pendidikan itu sendiri. Pendidikan yang berkualitas harus tersebar di seluruh penjuru agar mudah diakses oleh semua lapisan masyarakat

Demonstration of nanoimprinted hyperlens array for high-throughput sub-diffraction imaging

11124Nsciescopu

Activités de l’uranium et du radium dans des échantillons d’eau naturelle au Sahara marocain

Measure of uranium and radium activities in some natural watersamples from Moroccan SaharaThe preliminary results of  238U, 234U, 226Ra, 228Ra and 228Th activities and of 234U/238U,228Ra/226Ra, 228Th/228Ra and 226Ra/238U activity ratios obtained for 8 wells, 5 drillings, 2 springs and 3 tap water samples collected in Laayoune and Es-Smara regions in the Moroccan Sahara are given in this work. The analyzed natural water samples have been  collected from sources situated in a desert region rich in phosphates. Except for the one water drilling sample no used by population, the calculation of  equivalent doses to the maximal activities for each isotope show that all measured activities are inferior to the maximum contaminant levels recommended by the International Commission of Radioprotection and they don't present any risk for population health. The obtained results are comparable to those already found in other regions in Morocco or in the world

Nosocomial hepatitis C virus infection in a renal transplantation center

AbstractNosocomial hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections were recorded in the renal transplantation unit of the university hospital. There were cases of acute HCV infection with aggressive clinical courses diagnosed from a positive HCV RNA test in the early post-transplantation period and which remained anti-HCV negative. Their anti-HCV seronegativity was attributed to them having acquired HCV under intense immunosuppressive therapy and suggested that the aggressive clinical course could be due to the deficient immune response resulting in an inability to limit viral replication. There were also donors diagnosed as having acute HCV infection in the early post-operative period. Genotyping and sequence analysis for HCV were performed on the isolates of eight of these patients who were consecutively transplanted and of three donors whose recipients were infected with HCV prior to transplantation, and who acquired acute HCV infection after transplantation. Of the eight recipients in the first group three were genotype 1a, three were genotype 1b, one wasgenotype 3a, and the last one was genotype 4 according to Simmond's classification. Of the three donor-recipient couples both the HCV isolates from one couple were genotyped as 1b and the phylogenetic analysis indicated that the patients were infected with a common variant of HCV, but the genotypesof HCV isolates from the other couples were different. Recipients were genotype 1b and the donors were genotype 1a in these couples. Genotype results of the first group and donor-recipient couples, and sequence analysis of genotype 1b and 1a isolates, showed that the source of infection was not a unique strain and there were multiple breaks in universal precautions while managing these patients

Time-delayed Spatial Patterns in a Two-dimensional Array of Coupled Oscillators

We investigated the effect of time delays on phase configurations in a set of two-dimensional coupled phase oscillators. Each oscillator is allowed to interact with its neighbors located within a finite radius, which serves as a control parameter in this study. It is found that distance-dependent time-delays induce various patterns including traveling rolls, square-like and rhombus-like patterns, spirals, and targets. We analyzed the stability boundaries of the emerging patterns and briefly pointed out the possible empirical implications of such time-delayed patterns.Comment: 5 Figure

CD9, a Major Platelet Cell Surface Glycoprotein, is a ROCA Antigen and Is Expressed in the Nervous System

We previously generated a monoclonal antibody (mAb), ROCA1, which binds preferentially to rostral versus caudal sympathetic ganglia and intercostal nerves. Two other mAbs, ROCA2 and B2C11, bind to the same structures but not in rostrocaudal gradients. All three mAbs recognize a 26 kDa cell surface protein. Amino acid sequence data obtained from the affinity purified 26 kDa protein showed some homology with human CD9, a tetraspan protein implicated in intercellular signaling in hematopoietic cells. Using the PCR, we obtained cDNA clones representing the entire rat CD9 coding sequence from sciatic nerve and sympathetic ganglia. ROCA1, ROCA2, and B2C11 each immunoprecipitate a 26 kDa protein from CHO cells stably transfected with one of the clones, demonstrating that the ROCA cell surface antigen is indeed rat CD9. We find that CD9 mRNA is widely expressed, with particularly high levels present in a number of neural tissues. In situ hybridization demonstrates that peripheral neurons and Schwann cells, as well as adrenal chromaffin cells express CD9 mRNA. Consistent with immunoblot analyses showing that, unlike the ROCA1 epitope, the 26 kDa protein is not expressed in a rostrocaudal gradient, we find similar levels of rat CD9 mRNA in rostral and caudal intercostal nerves. In developing postnatal rat sciatic nerve, CD9 mRNA levels are coordinately regulated with the expression of myelin genes. These results provide another example of a cell surface protein expressed by both hematopoietic and neural cells, and suggest a role for CD9 in intercellular signaling in the nervous system

Multi-level mapping: Real-time dense monocular SLAM

We present a method for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) using a monocular camera that is capable of reconstructing dense 3D geometry online without the aid of a graphics processing unit (GPU). Our key contribution is a multi-resolution depth estimation and spatial smoothing process that exploits the correlation between low-texture image regions and simple planar structure to adaptively scale the complexity of the generated keyframe depthmaps to the texture of the input imagery. High-texture image regions are represented at higher resolutions to capture fine detail, while low-texture regions are represented at coarser resolutions for smooth surfaces. The computational savings enabled by this approach allow for significantly increased reconstruction density and quality when compared to the state-of-the-art. The increased depthmap density also improves tracking performance as more constraints can contribute to the pose estimation. A video of experimental results is available at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/rrg/multi_level_mapping.Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Research Fellowship

Mesure des activités de l'uranium ( 238U, 234U) et du rapport isotopique 234U/238U dans des échantillons d’eau naturelle au Maroc à l'aide de la spectrométrie alpha

Measurement of the activities of uranium (238U, 234U) and of Isotopic ratio 234U 238U in natural water samples in Morocco using spectrometry alphaIn this work, specific activities of     234U and 238U and isotopic activity ratios have been measured for 68 natural water samples collected from 5 principal sources of water in Morocco: Wells (18 samples), springs (17 hot spring water samples and 7 cold spring water samples), rivers (13 samples), lakes (5 samples) and tap water (8 samples). These samples have been collected in Moroccan regions characterized by various geology, different socio-economical activities. The obtained results have allow us to establish general tendencies of measured parameters repartition in sources of the analysed waters. This tendency is clear for hot springs where activities of  uranium are relatively low and 234&U/238&U activities ratios are important. This is due to temperature and oxydoreduction conditions of waters that are favourable in particularly to 234U solubility. The results so-obtained are comparable to those habitually found in natural waters in different regions of world and show that there is no radioactive pollution in these water