1,720,960 research outputs found
Biological processes for advancing lignocellulosic waste biorefinery by advocating circular economy
The actualization of a circular economy through the use of lignocellulosic wastes as renewable resources can lead to reduce the dependence from fossil-based resources and contribute to a sustainable waste management. The integrated biorefineries, exploiting the overall lignocellulosic waste components to generate fuels, chemicals and energy, are the pillar of the circular economy. The biological treatment is receiving great attention for the biorefinery development since it is considered an eco-friendly alternative to the physico-chemical strategies to increase the biobased product recovery from wastes and improve saccharification and fermentation yields. This paper reviews the last advances in the biological treatments aimed at upgrading lignocellulosic wastes, implementing the biorefinery concept and advocating circular economy
Bioreactors for lignocellulose conversion into fermentable sugars for production of high added value products
Lignocellulosic biomasses derived from dedicated crops and agro-industrial residual materials are promising renewable resources for the production of fuels and other added value bioproducts. Due to the tolerance to a wide range of environments, the dedicated crops can be cultivated on marginal lands, avoiding conflict with food production and having beneficial effects on the environment. Besides, the agro-industrial residual materials represent an abundant, available, and cheap source of bioproducts that completely cut out the economical and environmental issues related to the cultivation of energy crops. Different processing steps like pretreatment, hydrolysis, and microbial fermentation are needed to convert biomass into added value bioproducts. The reactor configuration, the operative conditions, and the operation mode of the conversion processes are crucial parameters for a high yield and productivity of the biomass bioconversion process. This review summarizes the last progresses in the bioreactor field, with main attention on the new configurations and the agitation systems, for conversion of dedicated energy crops (Arundo donax) and residual materials (corn stover, wheat straw, mesquite wood, agave bagasse, fruit and citrus peel wastes, sunflower seed hull, switchgrass, poplar sawdust, cogon grass, sugarcane bagasse, sunflower seed hull, and poplar wood) into sugars and ethanol. The main novelty of this review is its focus on reactor components and properties
Optimization of Arundo donax Saccharification by (Hemi)cellulolytic Enzymes from Pleurotus ostreatus
An enzymatic mixture of cellulases and xylanases was produced by Pleurotus ostreatus using microcrystalline cellulose as inducer, partially characterized and tested in the statistical analysis of Arundo donax bioconversion. The Plackett-Burman screening design was applied to identify the most significant parameters for the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated A. donax. As the most significant influence during the enzymatic hydrolysis of A. donax was exercised by the temperature (°C), pH, and time, the combined effect of these factors in the bioconversion by P. ostreatus cellulase and xylanase was analyzed by a 3(3) factorial experimental design. It is worth noting that the best result of 480.10 mg of sugars/gds, obtained at 45°C, pH 3.5, and 96 hours of incubation, was significant also when compared with the results previously reached by process optimization with commercial enzymes
Transcriptome analysis of Sulfolobus solfataricus infected with two related fuselloviruses reveals novel insights into the regulation of CRISPR-Cas system
Fuselloviruses SSV1 and SSV2 are model systems to investigate virusehost relationships in stably
infected cells thanks to their temperate nature. Although they are very similar in morphology, genome
organization and gene synteny, their replication is induced by different stimuli, i.e.: by UV-light exposure
(for SSV1) and by the growth progression of the host (for SSV2). In this study, we have analysed global
gene expression in SSV1- and SSV2-lysogens of Sulfolobus solfataricus P2 in the absence of any stimuli.
Additionally, the interplay among SSV1, SSV2 and the host has been investigated in a double-infected
strain to explore both virusehost and virusevirus interactions. Whereas SSV1 did not induce major
changes of the host gene expression, SSV2 elicited a strong host response, which includes the transcriptional
activation of CRISPR loci and cas genes. As a consequence, a significant decrease of the SSV2
copy number has been observed, which in turn led to provirus-capture into the host chromosome. Results
of this study have revealed novel aspects of the hosteviral interaction in the frame of the CRISPRresponse
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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