Selection of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains for efficient very high gravity bio-ethanol fermentation processes

An optimized very high gravity (VHG) glucose medium supplemented with low cost nutrient sources was used to evaluate bio-ethanol production by 11 Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. The industrial strains PE-2 and CA1185 exhibited the best overall fermentation performance, producing an ethanol titre of 19.2% (v/v) corresponding to a batch productivity of 2.5 g l-1 h-1, while the best laboratory strain (CEN.PK 113-7D) produced 17.5% (v/v) ethanol with a productivity of 1.7 g l-1 h-1. The results presented here emphasize the biodiversity found within S. cerevisiae species and that naturally adapted strains, such as PE-2 and CA1185, are likely to play a key role in facilitating the transition from laboratory technological breakthroughs to industrialscale bio-ethanol fermentations.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - PTDC/BIO/66151/2006, SFRH/ BD/64776/2009, SFRH/BPD/44328/ 200

Chronic treatment with 17-DMAG improves balance and coordination in a new mouse model of Machado-Joseph disease

Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) or spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is a neurodegenerative disease currently with no treatment. We describe a novel mouse model of MJD which expresses mutant human ataxin-3 at near endogenous levels and manifests MJD-like motor symptoms that appear gradually and progress over time. CMVMJD135 mice show ataxin-3 intranuclear inclusions in the CNS and neurodegenerative changes in key disease regions, such as the pontine and dentate nuclei. Hsp90 inhibition has shown promising outcomes in some neurodegenerative diseases, but nothing is known about its effects in MJD. Chronic treatment of CMVMJD mice with Hsp90 inhibitor 17-DMAG resulted in a delay in the progression of their motor coordination deficits and, at 22 and 24 weeks of age, was able to rescue the uncoordination phenotype to wild-type levels; in parallel, a reduction in neuropathology was observed in treated animals. We observed limited induction of heat-shock proteins with treatment, but found evidence that 17-DMAG may be acting through autophagy, as LC3-II (both at mRNA and protein levels) and beclin-1 were induced in the brain of treated animals. This resulted in decreased levels of the mutant ataxin-3 and reduced intranuclear aggregation of this protein. Our data validate this novel mouse model as a relevant tool for the study of MJD pathogenesis and for pre-clinical studies, and show that Hsp90 inhibition is a promising therapeutic strategy for MJD.We would like to thank to Dr. Henry Paulson for providing the anti-ataxin-3 serum, Dr. Monica Sousa for the pCMV vector and to Eng. Lucilia Goreti Pinto, Lu s Martins, Miguel Carneiro and Celina Barros for technical assistance. This work was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia through the projects FEDER/FCT, POCI/SAU-MMO/60412/2004 and PTDC/SAU-GMG/64076/2006. This work was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia through fellowships SFRH/BPD/91562/2012 to A.S-F., SFRH/BD/78388/2011 to S. D-S., SFRH/BD/51059/2010 to A.N-C., and SFRH/BPD/79469/2011 to A.T-C.

Pleosporales

One hundred and five generic types of Pleosporales are described and illustrated. A brief introduction and detailed history with short notes on morphology, molecular phylogeny as well as a general conclusion of each genus are provided. For those genera where the type or a representative specimen is unavailable, a brief note is given. Altogether 174 genera of Pleosporales are treated. Phaeotrichaceae as well as Kriegeriella, Zeuctomorpha and Muroia are excluded from Pleosporales. Based on the multigene phylogenetic analysis, the suborder Massarineae is emended to accommodate five families, viz. Lentitheciaceae, Massarinaceae, Montagnulaceae, Morosphaeriaceae and Trematosphaeriaceae

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Measurement of jet fragmentation into charged particles in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

Jet fragmentation in pp and PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair was studied using data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Fragmentation functions are constructed using charged-particle tracks with transverse momenta pt > 4 GeV for dijet events with a leading jet of pt > 100 GeV. The fragmentation functions in PbPb events are compared to those in pp data as a function of collision centrality, as well as dijet-pt imbalance. Special emphasis is placed on the most central PbPb events including dijets with unbalanced momentum, indicative of energy loss of the hard scattered parent partons. The fragmentation patterns for both the leading and subleading jets in PbPb collisions agree with those seen in pp data at 2.76 TeV. The results provide evidence that, despite the large parton energy loss observed in PbPb collisions, the partition of the remaining momentum within the jet cone into high-pt particles is not strongly modified in comparison to that observed for jets in vacuum.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic