Bacteriocin production by spray-dried lactic acid bacteria

Cell survival and antagonistic activity against Listeria innocua, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus were investigated after spray-drying three bacteriocin-producing strains of lactic acid bacteria: Carnobacterium divergens, Lactobacillus salivarius and Lactobacillus sakei

Green Chemistry, Green Engineering and Eco-Innovation Towards a More Sustainable Petrochemical Industry: Determinants of Brazilian Petrochemical Companies´ Engagement in GCE-Based Eco-Innovation Processes

__Abstract__ It is the general wisdom, within the petrochemical industrial sector, that technological changes, for the development of cleaner products, processes and services, is a basic requirement for companies to achieve advanced states of environmental and economic sustainability in the 21st century. It is also agreed that to innovate is essential for this industry make the necessary advancements and to reconcile the firms´ interests of being profitable, in the short-term, with their long-term capacity to evolve with societal pressures to ensure worker‘s and consumer‘s health within a sustainable biosphere. Despite these corporate perspectives, companies´ decisions to engage in the process of change, through technological and management innovations, is contingent on a series of elements that determine companies‘ eco-innovative behavior. This thesis was designed to gain insight into the aspects and determinants that influence ecoinnovative behavior of companies in the Brazilian petrochemical sector. Drawing on Icel Ajzen´s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), on Montalvo Corral´s TPB-based structural descriptive innovation-directed behavioral model and on Franco Malerba´s Sectoral Systems of Innovation (SSI) framework as its major theoretical frameworks, this study was designed to obtain answers to these research questions: - What is the extent to which Brazilian petrochemical companies are willing to innovate based upon the Twelve Principles of the Green Chemistry and the Twelve Principles of Green Engineering (GCE) as approaches to more sustainable behavior? - How can their willingness to change be documented and explained and what are its main determinants? -What are the sector´s main agents, mechanisms and actions, which are integral to its implementation of GCE and to going beyond them in the future

Clusters of Galaxies: New Results from the CLEF Hydrodynamics Simulation

Preliminary results are presented from the CLEF hydrodynamics simulation, a large (N=2(428)^3 particles within a 200 Mpc/h comoving box) simulation of the LCDM cosmology that includes both radiative cooling and a simple model for galactic feedback. Specifically, we focus on the X-ray properties of the simulated clusters at z=0 and demonstrate a reasonable level of agreement between simulated and observed cluster scaling relations.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Advances in Space Research (proceedings of the COSPAR 2004 Assembly, Paris

Electron trapping and acceleration on a downward density ramp: a two-stage approach

In a recent experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Geddes et al 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 215004), electron bunches with about 1MeV mean energy and small absolute energy spread (about 0.3MeV) were produced by plasma wave breaking on a downward density ramp. It was then speculated that such a bunch might be accelerated further in a plasma of low constant density, while mostly preserving its small absolute energy spread. This would then lead to a bunch with a high mean energy and very low relative energy spread. In this paper, trapping of a low-energy, low-spread electron bunch on a downward density ramp, followed by acceleration in a constant-density plasma, has been explored through particle-in-cell simulations. It has been found that the scheme works best when it is used as a separate injection stage for a laserwakefield accelerator, where the injection and acceleration stages are separated by a vacuum gap

Combining genotypic and phenotypic variation in a geospatial framework to identify sources of mussels in northern New Zealand

The New Zealand green-lipped mussel aquaculture industry is largely dependent on the supply of young mussels that wash up on Ninety Mile Beach (so-called Kaitaia spat), which are collected and trucked to aquaculture farms. The locations of source populations of Kaitaia spat are unknown and this lack of knowledge represents a major problem because spat supply may be irregular. We combined genotypic (microsatellite) and phenotypic (shell geochemistry) data in a geospatial framework to determine if this new approach can help identify source populations of mussels collected from two spat-collecting and four non-spat-collecting sites further south. Genetic analyses resolved differentiated clusters (mostly three clusters), but no obvious source populations. Shell geochemistry analyses resolved six differentiated clusters, as did the combined genotypic and phenotypic data. Analyses revealed high levels of spatial and temporal variability in the geochemistry signal. Whilst we have not been able to identify the source site(s) of Kaitaia spat our analyses indicate that geospatial testing using combined genotypic and phenotypic data is a powerful approach. Next steps should employ analyses of single nucleotide polymorphism markers with shell geochemistry and in conjunction with high resolution physical oceanographic modelling to resolve the longstanding question of the origin of Kaitaia spat

Simple Model For Resonant Tunneling Beyond The Effective-mass Approximation

We evaluate, within a single-band tight-binding model, the resonant transmission probability for a particle through a symmetric barrier-well-barrier potential structure. This is a simplified model of resonant tunneling through (Ga,Al)As-GaAs-(Ga,Al)As heterostructure. We examine both the cases of minimum of the band states at the center (direct-gap tunneling) and at the edge (indirect-gap tunneling) of the Brillouin zone for the barrier material. We show that only the lowest traveling-wave energy states, irrespective of their symmetry, dominate the tunneling. © 1987 The American Physical Society.35158126813

The shallow marine ostracod communities of the Azores (Mid- North Atlantic): taphonomy and palaeoecology

This is the first palaeoecological and taphonomical study of the Recent marine ostracods from the Azores. The aims of this work were to address the following questions: i) to establish the typical ostracod assemblages from the shallow waters of the Azores; ii) to determine the bathymetric ranges for each ostracod species; iii) to investigate the time span and depth in which significant transport occurs; iv) to quantify the amount of out of habitat transport between sandy beaches, tide pools and the sublittoral; v) to determine distinctive taphonomic features that can be used to recognize the amount of temporal resolution in ostracod assemblages. Fifteen species were recovered, representing 8 families and 12 genera (Loxoconcha, Neonesidea, Xestoleberis, Aurila, Urocythereis, Heterocythereis, Carinocythereis, Callistocythere, Leptocythere, Semicytherura, Lanceostoma and Cylindroleberis). The living assemblages are dominated by specimens of the Loxoconchidae, Xestoleberidae and Hemicytheridae, whereas the dead assemblages are dominated by specimens of the Loxoconchidae, Hemicytheridae, Bairdiidae, Xestoleberidae and Trachyleberidae. The shift from life-dominated assemblages in the shallower depths to death-dominated assemblages at greater depths is a consequence of significant transport downwards. The abundance of ostracods is higher in the first 10-20 m depth, especially in fine to medium sandy substrates. Considerable differences among islands were supported by the Bayesian model, as a consequence of the physical and hydrodynamic factors that differently affect each of the Azorean islands. Large-scale (sea-surface currents, Holocene relative sea-level, storms) and small-scale processes are responsible for shaping the Azorean Recent marine ostracod communities. No living specimens were found in the samples collected at the beach faces, thus reinforcing former interpretations of one of the authors (S. Ávila) that advocate that at a global scale, sandy beaches in oceanic islands located at temperate latitudes are almost or even completely devoid of life due to historical reasons related with the sea level changes

Co-authorship networks and research impact in large research facilities: benchmarking internal reports and bibliometric databases

In this paper, we address the main differences of the scientific production between internal and external researcher groups of a synchrotron radiation facility. Through the construction and analysis of their co-authorship networks, we could see the structural variations in the way these two different kinds of research groups collaborate. We also evaluated the scientific impact of each group and found surprising similarities, which led us to create two hypotheses that might contribute to the comprehension of the scientific assessment of large-scale research facilities. We found that, as the review criteria the studied synchrotron adopts to select external scientific projects is very effective; the quality of the external research is at least as good as the internal. Therefore, evaluating the internal scientific output appears to be an appropriate representation of the impact of the whole laboratory.Merit, Expertise and Measuremen

Identifying and prioritising services in European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

Ecosystems are multifunctional and provide humanity with a broad array of vital services. Effective management of services requires an improved evidence base, identifying the role of ecosystems in delivering multiple services, which can assist policy-makers in maintaining them. Here, information from the literature and scientific experts was used to systematically document the importance of services and identify trends in their use and status over time for the main terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in Europe. The results from this review show that intensively managed ecosystems contribute mostly to vital provisioning services (e.g. agro-ecosystems provide food via crops and livestock, and forests provide wood), while semi-natural ecosystems (e.g. grasslands and mountains) are key contributors of genetic resources and cultural services (e.g. aesthetic values and sense of place). The most recent European trends in human use of services show increases in demand for crops from agro-ecosystems, timber from forests, water flow regulation from rivers, wetlands and mountains, and recreation and ecotourism in most ecosystems, but decreases in livestock production, freshwater capture fisheries, wild foods and virtually all services associated with ecosystems which have considerably decreased in area (e.g. semi-natural grasslands). The condition of the majority of services show either a degraded or mixed status across Europe with the exception of recent enhancements in timber production in forests and mountains, freshwater provision, water/erosion/natural hazard regulation and recreation/ecotourism in mountains, and climate regulation in forests. Key gaps in knowledge were evident for certain services across all ecosystems, including the provision of biochemicals and natural medicines, genetic resources and the regulating services of seed dispersal, pest/disease regulation and invasion resistance