Tuning Immobilized Commercial Lipase Preparations Features by Simple Treatment with Metallic Phosphate Salts

Four commercial immobilized lipases biocatalysts have been submitted to modifications with different metal (zinc, cobalt or copper) phosphates to check the effects of this modification on enzyme features. The lipase preparations were Lipozyme^®TL (TLL-IM) (lipase from Thermomyces lanuginose), Lipozyme^®435 (L435) (lipase B from Candida antarctica), Lipozyme^®RM (RML-IM), and LipuraSelect (LS-IM) (both from lipase from Rhizomucor miehei). The modifications greatly altered enzyme specificity, increasing the activity versus some substrates (e.g., TLL-IM modified with zinc phosphate in hydrolysis of triacetin) while decreasing the activity versus other substrates (the same preparation in activity versus R- or S- methyl mandelate). Enantiospecificity was also drastically altered after these modifications, e.g., LS-IM increased the activity versus the R isomer while decreasing the activity versus the S isomer when treated with copper phosphate. Regarding the enzyme stability, it was significantly improved using octyl-agarose-lipases. Using all these commercial biocatalysts, no significant positive effects were found; in fact, a decrease in enzyme stability was usually detected. The results point towards the possibility of a battery of biocatalysts, including many different metal phosphates and immobilization protocols, being a good opportunity to tune enzyme features, increasing the possibilities of having biocatalysts that may be suitable for a specific process.     

Helicoidal flat surfaces in the 3‐sphere

In this paper, helicoidal flat surfaces in the 3‐dimensional sphere are considered. A complete classification of such surfaces, that generalizes a classification of rotational flat surfaces, is given in terms of the first and second fundamental forms for asymptotic parameters. The result consists in a relation between helicoidal flat surfaces and linear solutions of the corresponding homogeneous wave equation for the angle function.     

Phase diagrams of the Ziff–Gulari–Barshad model on random networks

In this study, we revisited the Ziff–Gulari–Barshad (ZGB) model in order to study the behavior of its phase diagram when two well-known random networks play the role of the catalytic surfaces: the random geometric graph and the Erdös–Rényi network. The connectivity and, therefore, the average number of neighbors of the nodes of these networks can vary according to their control parameters, the neighborhood radius α, and the linking probability p, respectively. In addition, the catalytic reactions of the ZGB model are governed by the parameter y, the adsorption rate of carbon monoxide molecules on the catalytic surface. So, to study the phase diagrams of the model on both random networks, we carried out extensive steady-state Monte Carlo simulations in the space parameters (y, α) and (y, p) and showed that the continuous phase transition is greatly affected by the topological features of the networks while the discontinuous one remains present in the diagram throughout the interval of study.     

By the content of their character? Discrimination,social identity,and observed distributions of income

ABSTRACT

This paper applies information-theoretic measures to consider the systemic effects on individual incomes of complex patterns of social and economic discrimination by race, ethnicity, and gender in the U.S. It estimates non-parametric indices of joint, conditional or incremental, and mutual information between income, social identity, and observable economic characteristics obtained using large-scale cross-sectional data from that economy. The paper advances new conceptual and empirical approaches to the nature and measurement of economic discrimination and inequalities of opportunity, founded on the formal informativeness of measures of social identity on economic outcomes. Estimated values for indices of informational association also cast new light on the effects of the intersections of gender and race/ethnicity on income, perverse patterns in the effects of education across different groups, and a few notable dynamic changes in patterns of income distribution in that economy over the past 40 years.     

Damage identification in a concrete dam by fitting measured modal parameters

We propose a method, based on an inverse problem, to obtain numerically the material parameters that characterize the elasticity tensor of a body with linear elastic behavior, using accurate measurements of the first modal parameters, namely the natural frequencies and the modes of vibration (the eigenfrequencies and the eigenvectors). Appropriate functionals are defined, whose minimum points correspond to the unknown material parameters. To obtain these minimum points a highly nonlinear parametric optimization problem is solved. Its resolution involves specific mathematical tools like the derivative of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors with respect to the material parameters, the adjoint method, and gradient methods for the minimization of the functional. An application is presented, which considers a cracked dam in which is assumed the presence of transversely isotropic material in the cracked zone. The material parameters of the transversely isotropic material are obtained by minimizing the distance between the modal parameters (eigenfrequencies and eigenvectors) of a numerical model of the dam and the observed modal parameters physically measured in the dam. The algorithm is implemented in a C++ home made code with the aid of open-source libraries for scientific computation.