460 research outputs found
Microlensing by Compact Objects associated to Gas Clouds
We investigate gravitational microlensing of point-like lenses surrounded by
diffuse gas clouds. Besides gravitational bending, one must also consider
refraction and absorption phenomena. According to the cloud density, the light
curves may suffer small to large deviations from Paczynski curves, up to
complete eclipses. Moreover, the presence of the cloud endows this type of
microlensing events with a high chromaticity and absorption lines recognizable
by spectral analysis. It is possible that these objects populate the halo of
our galaxy, giving a conspicuous contribution to the fraction of the baryonic
dark matter. The required features for the extension and the mass of the cloud
to provide appreciable signatures are also met by several astrophysical
objects.Comment: 11 pages with 4 figures. Accepted by A&
Erythromycin degradation by an esterase in enzymatic membrane reactors
1 Introduction
Pharmaceuticals products (PPs) and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) as well as their transformation products have been detected in almost all effluents from sewage facilities, in surface water, in groundwater, adsorbed on sediments and even in drinking water [1,2]. Ecotoxicity studies have demonstrated that pharmaceutical pollutants could affect the growth, reproduction and behavior of birds, fishes, invertebrates, plants and bacteria [3,4]. Some recently published studies report that the presence of low concentrations of antibiotics in the wastewaters may develop antibiotic resistance in the whole environment [5, 6]. As previously reported by Demarche et al. [7], the use of enzymes might be beneficial to enhance or complement conventional wastewater treatments. As far as enzymes are relatively expensive the reuse of the biocatalyst appears to be essential to ensure the economic and industrial viability of the process. Enzymatic membrane reactors appear to be an interesting alternative since they enable to couple reaction and separation [8]. In fact, in such enzymatic reactors, the substrate is continuously brought in contact with the biocatalyst, which is retained by the membrane, either freely circulating with the retentate or fixed on or within the membrane and the reaction products are recovered in the permeate.
This work describes the study of erythromycin degradation by an EreB esterase in free and immobilized forms. It focuses on the comparison between 3 different enzymatic membrane reactors for erythromycin degradation by esterase EreB. In the first configuration the free biocatalyst was confined in the reaction media by a ceramic membrane. In the two other cases, the enzyme was immobilized in the membrane either covalently grafted or adsorbed.
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Online, on call: : the spread of digitally-organised just-in-time working and its implications for standard employment models
This article questions whether the dominant policy discourse, in which a normative model of standard employment is counterposed to ânon-standardâ or âatypicalâ employment, enables us to capture the diversity of fluid labour markets in which work is dynamically reshaped in an interaction between different kinds of employment status and work organisation. Drawing on surveys in the UK, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands that investigate work managed via online platforms (âcrowdworkâ) and associated practices, it demonstrates that crowdwork represents part of a continuum. Not only do most crowd workers combine work for online platforms with other forms of work or income generation, but also many of the ICT-related practices associated with crowdwork are widespread across the rest of the labour market where a growing number of workers are âloggedâ. Future research should not just focus on crowdworkers as a special case but on new patterns of work organisation in the regular workforce.Peer reviewe
Axion searches with the EDELWEISS-II experiment
We present new constraints on the couplings of axions and more generic
axion-like particles using data from the EDELWEISS-II experiment. The EDELWEISS
experiment, located at the Underground Laboratory of Modane, primarily aims at
the direct detection of WIMPs using germanium bolometers. It is also sensitive
to the low-energy electron recoils that would be induced by solar or dark
matter axions. Using a total exposure of up to 448 kg.d, we searched for
axion-induced electron recoils down to 2.5 keV within four scenarios involving
different hypotheses on the origin and couplings of axions. We set a 95% CL
limit on the coupling to photons GeV in
a mass range not fully covered by axion helioscopes. We also constrain the
coupling to electrons, , similar to the more
indirect solar neutrino bound. Finally we place a limit on , where is the
effective axion-nucleon coupling for Fe. Combining these results we
fully exclude the mass range keV for DFSZ axions and
keV for KSVZ axions
Emulsion sheet doublets as interface trackers for the OPERA experiment
New methods for efficient and unambiguous interconnection between electronic
counters and target units based on nuclear photographic emulsion films have
been developed. The application to the OPERA experiment, that aims at detecting
oscillations between mu neutrino and tau neutrino in the CNGS neutrino beam, is
reported in this paper. In order to reduce background due to latent tracks
collected before installation in the detector, on-site large-scale treatments
of the emulsions ("refreshing") have been applied. Changeable Sheet (CSd)
packages, each made of a doublet of emulsion films, have been designed,
assembled and coupled to the OPERA target units ("ECC bricks"). A device has
been built to print X-ray spots for accurate interconnection both within the
CSd and between the CSd and the related ECC brick. Sample emulsion films have
been extensively scanned with state-of-the-art automated optical microscopes.
Efficient track-matching and powerful background rejection have been achieved
in tests with electronically tagged penetrating muons. Further improvement of
in-doublet film alignment was obtained by matching the pattern of low-energy
electron tracks. The commissioning of the overall OPERA alignment procedure is
in progress.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figure
Measurement of the atmospheric muon charge ratio with the OPERA detector
The OPERA detector at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS) was used
to measure the atmospheric muon charge ratio in the TeV energy region. We
analyzed 403069 atmospheric muons corresponding to 113.4 days of livetime
during the 2008 CNGS run. We computed separately the muon charge ratio for
single and for multiple muon events in order to select different energy regions
of the primary cosmic ray spectrum and to test the charge ratio dependence on
the primary composition. The measured charge ratio values were corrected taking
into account the charge-misidentification errors. Data have also been grouped
in five bins of the "vertical surface energy". A fit to a simplified model of
muon production in the atmosphere allowed the determination of the pion and
kaon charge ratios weighted by the cosmic ray energy spectrum.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure
First events from the CNGS neutrino beam detected in the OPERA experiment
The OPERA neutrino detector at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory (LNGS)
was designed to perform the first detection of neutrino oscillations in
appearance mode, through the study of nu_mu to nu_tau oscillations. The
apparatus consists of a lead/emulsion-film target complemented by electronic
detectors. It is placed in the high-energy, long-baseline CERN to LNGS beam
(CNGS) 730 km away from the neutrino source. In August 2006 a first run with
CNGS neutrinos was successfully conducted. A first sample of neutrino events
was collected, statistically consistent with the integrated beam intensity.
After a brief description of the beam and of the various sub-detectors, we
report on the achievement of this milestone, presenting the first data and some
analysis results.Comment: Submitted to the New Journal of Physic
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