This review focuses on nontemplate-dependent polymerases that use water-soluble substrates and convert them into water-insoluble polymers that form granules or inclusions within the cell. The initial part of the review summarizes briefly the current knowledge of polymer formation catalyzed by starch and glycogen synthases, polyphosphate kinase (a polymerase), cyanophycin synthetases, and rubber...

This paper proposes a set of new techniques to improve the implementation of the SHA-2 hashing algorithm. These techniques consist mostly in operation rescheduling and hardware reutilization, allowing a significant reduction of the critical path while the required area also decreases. Both SHA256 and SHA512 hash functions have been implemented and tested in the VIRTEX II Pro prototyping technol...

The concept of learning object appears as a mean to improve the reuse of educational resources in digital format.The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a common model for learning objects that makes easy the reutilization of educational contents between different systems. The objective of this paper is to show how an educational content in form of learning object packaged under ...

A microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) procedure to isolate phenolic compounds from almond skin byproducts was optimized. A three-level, three-factor Box-Behnken design was used to evaluate the effect of almond skin weight, microwave power, and irradiation time on total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity (DPPH). Almond skin weight was the most important parameter in the studied resp...

W ITH PROGRESS in space technology, prolonged space travel and temporary habitation of extraterrestrial bodies seems inevitable. For short-term missions the provision of food and breathable air can best be met by an expendable system-that is, a life support system which provides basic needs entirely out of stored products. Missions covering extended periods of time, however, due to payload limi...

The aim of the present work is to perform a step towards the design of specific algorithms and methods for automatic music generation. A novel probabilistic model for the characterization of music learned from music samples is designed. This model makes use of automatically extracted music parameters, namely tempo, time signature, rhythmic patterns and pitch contours, to characterize music. Spe...

Herein the case of a 10-month-old boy with metachromatic leukodystrophy is reported. Diffusion MR imaging performed with an echo-planar trace sequence revealed a cytotoxic edema-like pattern (high signal intensity on b = 1000 s/mm(2) images and low apparent diffusion coefficient values) in the affected white matter in the absence of an ischemic condition. This finding was unchanged at a 6-month...

Organic products generated from waste activated sludge hydrolysis and fermentation process could be used as supplementary carbon source for enhanced biological nutrient removal. However, accompanied with organics production, large amount of ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) and soluble orthophosphorus (SOP) released, which would be negative to the reutilization of sludge carbon source. In this study, b...

Herein we report the synthesis of unsymmetrical meso-aryl substituted porphyrins, using NaY zeolite as an inorganic acid catalyst. A comparative study between this method and the several synthetic strategies available in the literature was carried out. Our method presented a better, more cost-efficient rationale and displayed a significantly lower environmental impact. Furthermore, it was possi...

We present an efficient approach to develop cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) hybrids with magnetically responsive Fe3O4 nanoparticles that were synthesized using the (Fe3+/Fe2+) coprecipitation. After 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO)-catalyzed oxidation of CNC, carbodiimide (EDC/NHS) was used for coupling amine-containing iron oxide nanoparticles that were achieved by dopamine li...