Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

RR-Lyrae-type pulsations from a 0.26-solar-mass star in a binary system

RR Lyrae pulsating stars have been extensively used as tracers of old stellar populations for the purpose of determining the ages of galaxies, and as tools to measure distances to nearby galaxies. There was accordingly considerable interest when the RR Lyr star OGLE-BLG-RRLYR-02792 was found to be a member in an eclipsing binary system4, as the mass of the pulsator (hitherto constrained only by models) could be unambiguously determined. Here we report that RRLYR-02792 has a mass of 0.26 M_sun and therefore cannot be a classical RR Lyrae star. Through models we find that its properties are best explained by the evolution of a close binary system that started with 1.4 M_sun and 0.8 M_sun stars orbiting each other with an initial period of 2.9 days. Mass exchange over 5.4 Gyr produced the observed system, which is now in a very short-lived phase where the physical properties of the pulsator happen to place it in the same instability strip of the H-R diagram occupied by RR Lyrae stars. We estimate that samples of RR Lyr stars may contain a 0.2 percent contamination with systems similar to this one, implying that distances measured with RR Lyrae stars should not be significantly affected by these binary interlopers

The application of cortical layer markers in the evaluation of cortical dysplasias in epilepsy

The diagnostic criteria for focal cortical dysplasia type I (FCD I) remain to be well and consistently defined. Cortical layer-specific markers (CLM) provide a potential tool for the objective assessment of any dyslamination. We studied expression patterns of recognised CLM using immunohistochemistry for N200, ER81, Otx1, Map1b (subsets of V/VI projection neurones), Pax6, Tbr1, Tbr2 (differentially expressed in cortical neurones from intermediate progenitor cells), Cux 1 (outer cortical layers) and MASH1 (ventricular zone progenitors). Dysplasia subtypes included FCD I and II, dysplasias adjacent to hippocampal sclerosis (HS) or dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumours (DNTs); all were compared to neonatal and adult controls. Laminar expression patterns in normal cortex were observed with Tbr1, Map1b, N200 and Otx1. FCDI cases in younger patients were characterised by abnormal expression in layer II for Tbr1 and Otx1. FCDII showed distinct labelling of balloon cells (Pax6, ER81 and Otx1) and dysmorphic neurones (Tbr 1, N200 and Map1b) supporting origins from radial glia and intermediate progenitor cells, respectively. In temporal lobe sclerosis cases with dysplasia adjacent to HS, Tbr1 and Map1b highlighted abnormal orientation of neurones in layer II. Dyslamination was not confirmed in the perilesional cortex of DNT with CLM. Finally, immature cell types (Otx1, Pax6 and Tbr2) were noted in varied pathologies. One possibility is activation of progenitor cell populations which could contribute to the pathophysiology of these lesions

Measurement of the inclusive and differential Higgs boson production cross sections in the decay mode to a pair of τ Leptons in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV

Measurements of the inclusive and differential fiducial cross sections of the Higgs boson are presented, using the τ lepton decay channel. The differential cross sections are measured as functions of the Higgs boson transverse momentum, jet multiplicity, and transverse momentum of the leading jet in the event, if any. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13  TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1}. These are the first differential measurements of the Higgs boson cross section in the final state of two τ leptons. In final states with a large jet multiplicity or with a Lorentz-boosted Higgs boson, these measurements constitute a significant improvement over measurements performed in other final states

MAGIC and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray results on unassociated HAWC sources

The HAWC Collaboration released the 2HWC catalogue of TeV sources, in which 19 show no association with any known high-energy (HE; E greater than or similar to 10 GeV) or very-high-energy (VHE; E greater than or similar to 300 GeV) sources. This catalogue motivated follow-up studies by both the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) and Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope) observatories with the aim of investigating gamma-ray emission over a broad energy band. In this paper, we report the results from the first joint work between High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC), MAGIC, and Fermi-LAT on three unassociated HAWC sources: 2HWC J2006+341, 2HWC J1907+084*, and 2HWC J1852+013*. Although no significant detection was found in the HE and VHE regimes, this investigation shows that a minimum 1 degrees extension (at 95 per cent confidence level) and harder spectrum in the GeV than the one extrapolated from HAWC results are required in the case of 2HWC J1852+013*, whilst a simply minimum extension of 0.16 degrees (at 95 per cent confidence level) can already explain the scenario proposed by HAWC for the remaining sources. Moreover, the hypothesis that these sources are pulsar wind nebulae is also investigated in detail

Search for supersymmetry in final states with two or three soft leptons and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

ArXiv ePrint: 2111.06296 (https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.06296).Copyright © 2022 CERN, for the benefit of the CMS Collaboration. A search for supersymmetry in events with two or three low-momentum leptons and missing transverse momentum is performed. The search uses proton-proton collisions at s√ = 13 TeV collected in the three-year period 2016–2018 by the CMS experiment at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 137 fb−1. The data are found to be in agreement with expectations from standard model processes. The results are interpreted in terms of electroweakino and top squark pair production with a small mass difference between the produced supersymmetric particles and the lightest neutralino. For the electroweakino interpretation, two simplified models are used, a wino-bino model and a higgsino model. Exclusion limits at 95% confidence level are set on χ∼02/χ∼±1 masses up to 275 GeV for a mass difference of 10 GeV in the wino-bino case, and up to 205(150) GeV for a mass difference of 7.5 (3) GeV in the higgsino case. The results for the higgsino are further interpreted using a phenomenological minimal supersymmetric standard model, excluding the higgsino mass parameter μ up to 180 GeV with the bino mass parameter M1 at 800 GeV. In the top squark interpretation, exclusion limits are set at top squark masses up to 540 GeV for four-body top squark decays and up to 480 GeV for chargino-mediated decays with a mass difference of 30 GeV.SCOAP3

Higher-order moments of the elliptic flow distribution in PbPb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV

A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv:2311.11370v2 [nucl-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.11370 . Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/HIN-21-010 (CMS Public Pages).The hydrodynamic flow-like behavior of charged hadrons in high-energy lead-lead collisions is studied through multiparticle correlations. The elliptic anisotropy values based on different orders of multiparticle cumulants, v2{2k}, are measured up to the tenth order (k = 5) as functions of the collision centrality at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of √sNN = 5.02 TeV. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.607 nb−1. A hierarchy is observed between the coefficients, with v2{2}>v2{4}≳v2{6}≳v2{8}≳v2{10}. Based on these results, centrality-dependent moments for the fluctuation-driven event-by-event v2 distribution are determined, including the skewness, kurtosis and, for the first time, superskewness. Assuming a hydrodynamic expansion of the produced medium, these moments directly probe the initial-state geometry in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions.SCOAP3

Search for resonances in events with photon and jet final states in proton-proton collisions at sqrtssqrt{s} = 13 TeV

A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv:2305.07998v2 [hep-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07998v2 . Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/EXO-20-012 (CMS Public Pages). Report number: CMS-EXO-20-012, CERN-EP-2023-064.A search for resonances in events with the γ+jet final state has been performed using proton-proton collision data collected at √s = 13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The total data analyzed correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. Models of excited quarks and quantum black holes are considered. Using a wide-jet reconstruction for the candidate jet, the γ+jet invariant mass spectrum measured in data is examined for the presence of resonances over the standard model continuum background. The background is estimated by fitting the mass distribution with a functional form. The data exhibit no statistically significant deviations from the expected standard model background. Exclusion limits at 95% confidence level on the resonance mass and other parameters are set. Excited light-flavor quarks (excited bottom quarks) are excluded up to a mass of 6.0 (3.8) TeV. Quantum black hole production is excluded for masses up to 7.5 (5.2) TeV in the Arkani-Hamed-Dimopoulos-Dvali (Randall-Sundrum) model. These lower mass bounds are the most stringent to date among those obtained in the γ+jet final state.SCOAP3