Mapping of Alternative Oilseeds from the Brazilian Caatinga and Assessment of Catalytic Pathways toward Biofuels Production

Biofuels are increasingly important renewable resources in the world's energy matrix that have challenged the scientific community as well as small and large farmers to develop alternatives to fossil fuels in order to achieve the aims of energy transition. In particular, Brazil's proven competitiveness in agribusiness together with its rich biodiversity put the country in a key position in the biofuels market. The semiarid Caatinga of northeastern Brazil, an exclusive biome rich in many oilseed species suitable for potential energy purposes, is of particular interest in this field. Nowadays, soybeans are the main feedstock used for the production of biodiesel, but, due to the increasing demand for biofuels, the search for alternative sources of oil from tropical flora with high productivity is crucial. Under this premise, this systematic review focuses on mapping Caatinga's vegetable oil crops that could be used as alternative raw materials for biofuels' production in Brazil, in addition to traditional soybeans and sugarcane. To gain more detailed insight into these matrices, their main properties, including oil content, fatty acid profile and physicochemical properties, are discussed. Moreover, an overview is provided of processes to synthesize different types of biofuels, particularly biodiesel and aviation biokerosene, including the routes employing homogeneous, enzymatic and mainly heterogeneous catalysts. Finally, future prospects and challenges for renewable biofuels and the Caatinga biome are addressed

Total immersion : Designing for affective symbiosis in a virtual reality game with haptics, biosensors, and emotive agents

Peer reviewe

Total blood lymphocyte counts in hemochromatosis probands with HFE C282Y homozygosity: relationship to severity of iron overload and HLA-A and -B alleles and haplotypes

BACKGROUND: It has been reported that some persons with hemochromatosis have low total blood lymphocyte counts, but the reason for this is unknown. METHODS: We measured total blood lymphocyte counts using an automated blood cell counter in 146 hemochromatosis probands (88 men, 58 women) with HFE C282Y homozygosity who were diagnosed in medical care. Univariate and multivariate analyses of total blood lymphocyte counts were evaluated using these variables: sex; age, transferrin saturation, and serum ferritin concentration at diagnosis; units of blood removed by phlebotomy to achieve iron depletion; and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A and -B alleles and haplotypes. RESULTS: The mean age at diagnosis was 49 ± 14 years (range 18 – 80 years) in men and 50 ± 13 years (range 22 – 88 years) in women. The correlations of total blood lymphocyte counts with sex, age, transferrin saturation, and serum ferritin concentration at diagnosis, and units of blood removed by phlebotomy to achieve iron depletion were not significant at the 0.05 level. Univariate analyses revealed significant associations between total blood lymphocyte counts and presence of the HLA-A*01, -B*08, and -B*14 alleles, and the A*01-B*08 haplotype. Presence of the A*01 allele, B*08 allele, or A*01-B*08 haplotype were associated with a lower total blood lymphocyte count, whereas presence of the B*14 allele was associated with a greater total blood lymphocyte count. There was an inverse association of total blood lymphocyte count with units of phlebotomy to achieve iron depletion, serum ferritin concentration, and with presence of the A*01-B*08 haplotype. CONCLUSION: We conclude that there is a significant inverse relationship of total blood lymphocyte counts and severity of iron overload in hemochromatosis probands with HFE C282Y homozygosity. The presence of the HLA-A*01 allele or the -B*08 allele was also associated with significantly lower total blood lymphocyte counts, whereas presence of the -B*14 allele was associated with significantly higher total blood lymphocyte counts. In univariate and multivariate analyses, total blood lymphocyte counts were significantly lower in probands with the HLA-A*01-B*08 haplotype than in probands without this haplotype

Combined sticking: a new approach for finite-amplitude Coulomb frictional contact

Engineering-level accuracy of discretization methods for frictional contact originates from precise representation of discontinuous frictional and normal interaction laws and precise discrete contact techniques. In terms of discontinuous behavior in the quasi-static case, two themes are of concern: the normal interaction (i.e. impact) and the jumps in tangential directions arising from high frictional values. In terms of normal behavior, we use a smoothed complementarity relation. For the tangential behavior, we propose a simple and effective algorithm, which is based a stick predictor followed by corrections to the tangential velocity. This allows problems with impact and stick-slip behavior to be solved with an implicit code based on Newton–Raphson iterations. Three worked examples are shown with comparisons with published results. An extension to node-to-face form in 3D is also presented