Background: Xylose isomerase (XI) catalyses the isomerisation of xylose to xylulose in bacteria and some fungi. Currently, only a limited number of XI genes have been functionally expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the microorganism of choice for lignocellulosic ethanol production. The objective of the present study was to search for novel XI genes in the vastly diverse microbial habitat prese

Context. In 1992 we began a precision radial velocity survey for planets around solar-like stars with the Coude Echelle Spectrograph and the Long Camera (CES LC) at the 1.4m telescope in La Silla (Chile) resulting in the discovery of the planet iota Hor b. We have continued the survey with the upgraded CES Very Long Camera (VLC) and the HARPS spectrographs, both at the 3.6m telescope, until 2007.

The understanding of the state of dissolution of cellulose in a certain solvent is a critical step forward in the development of new efficient solvent systems for cellulose. Nevertheless, obtaining such information is not trivial. Recently, polarization transfer solid-state NMR (PTssNMR) was shown to be a very promising technique regarding an efficient and robust characterization of the solution s

Feathers are amongst the most complex epidermal structures known, and they have a well-documented evolutionary trajectory across non-avian dinosaurs and basal birds. Moreover, melanosome-like microbodies preserved in association with fossil plumage have been used to reconstruct original colour, behaviour and physiology. However, these putative ancient melanosomes might alternatively represent micr

Background: Knowledge of sitting and standing performance in a total population of children with cerebral palsy (CP) is of interest for health care planning and for prediction of future ability in the individual child. In 1994, a register and a health care programme for children with CP in southern Sweden was initiated. In the programme information on how the child usually sits, stands, stands up

This paper deals with the problem of synchronization in networks of heterogeneous agents with common nominal behavior. The agents are modeled as (possibly nonlinear) perturbed versions of a common SISO nominal LTI operator, and they are interconnected via a sparse memoryless interconnection operator, coherent with the communication graph underlying the network. The network is said to synchronize i

We provide a revised assessment of the number of exoplanets that should be discovered by Gaia astrometry, extending previous studies to a broader range of spectral types, distances, and magnitudes. Our assessment is based on a large representative sample of host stars from the TRILEGAL Galaxy population synthesis model, recent estimates of the exoplanet frequency distributions as a function of ste

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic skin disorder with high prevalence, especially in the Nordic countries. Effective maintenance therapy during symptom-free episodes may prolong the time to eczema relapse according to a previously published clinical trial. The present study evaluates the cost-effectiveness of a barrier-strengthening moisturizer containing 5% urea, compared with a moisturizer with no a

Hydropower energy is one of most promising clean energy technologies, however this energy technologies has many challenges if compere other renewable energy for example Biomass, solar, wind energy, has high capital investment cost. In Mozambique, access to conversional energy in form of electricity has been limited to most of the rural population. The objective of this investigation research is to

För att begränsa risken för allvarliga klimatförändringar måste utsläppen av växthusgaser minskas kraftigt. Detta kommer att kräva en omställning av energisystemet där energieffektivisering och en ökad elektrifiering, förnybar energi, avskiljning och lagring av koldioxid samt kärnkraft kan få stor betydelse. I denna rapport analyseras hur en sådan omställning kan påverka olika aspekter av energi

We study the problem of clustering fingerprints with at most p missing values (CMV(p) for short) naturally arising in oligonucleotide fingerprinting, which is an efficient method for characterizing DNA clone libraries. We show that already CMV(2) is NP-hard. We also show that a greedy algorithm yields a min(1+lnn,2+plnl) approximation for CMV(p), and can be implemented to run in O(nl2p) time. We a

Alcohol is a risk factor for several types of cancer. However, the results for prostate cancer have been inconsistent, with most studies showing no association. Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, detailed information were collected from 142,607 male participants on the intake of alcoholic beverages at recruitment (for 100% of the cohort) and over lifetime (for

Popular Abstract in Swedish Läkares nattjour innebär långa arbetspass, höga krav, stress och sömnbrist. I dagens läge liknar nattjouren ofta ett nattskift med begränsade möjligheter till vila under arbetspasset. Skiftarbete med nattskift har i många undersökningar visats ge ökad risk för bland annat hjärtinfarkt och diabetes, samt även ha en negativ inverkan på välbefinnande och sömn. Samtliga desAbstract Physicians’ work on night-call entails long and stressful working hours with high demands and disrupted sleep. Incomplete recovery is considered to be the most important link between acute physiological stress reactions, shift work and chronic health effects. Mental and physiological activation naturally accompanies night-call duty, but the crucial issue, from a health perspective, is wh

The article comprises an exemplification of the method the author used in his scientific research as a member of the grant Presa românească şi ideea naţională. Antologie, studiu, dicţionar, dosar critic (The Romanian Press and the National Idea. Anthology, Study, Dictionary, Critical File), 2005-2006, CNCSIS code 782, coordinator of grant Professor Mircea Popa. The author was responsible for the p

Electroweak measurements performed with data taken at the electron positron collider LEP at CERN from 1995 to 2000 are reported. The combined data set considered in this report corresponds to a total luminosity of about 3 fb(-1) collected by the four LEP experiments ALEPH, DELPHI, 13 and OPAL, at centre-of-mass energies ranging from 130 GeV to 209 GeV. Combining the published results of the four L

The risk of losses of income and productive means due to adverse weather can differ significantly among farmers sharing a productive landscape, and is of course hard to estimate, or even "guesstimate" empirically. Moreover, the costs associated with investments in reduced vulnerability to climatic events are likely to exhibit economies of scope. We explore the implications of these characteristics