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International audience; Clay mineralogy, siliciclastic grain-size, major elements, 87Sr/86Sr, and εNd analyses of deep-sea sediments cored in the north-eastern Bay of Bengal are used to reconstruct evolution of detrital sources and sediment transport to the proximal part of the Bengal deep-sea fan during the last climatic cycle. εNd values (−13.3 to −9.7) and 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.721–0.733) indicate a mixture of sediments originating from the Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers and the Indo-Burman ranges. Interglacial Marine Isotopic Stages (MIS) 5 and 1 are associated with a higher contribution of sediments from the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system than is the case for glacial MIS 6, 4, 3, and 2. Siliciclasitic grain-size combined with Si/Al and Si/Fe ratios indicate coarser glacial sediments with numerous turbidite layers. Glacial turbidite layers display similar clay mineralogical compositions to hemipelagic sediments. Only few of turbidite layers (MIS 6, 4, and 2) are slightly unradiogenic (εNd −13.3), suggesting a higher contribution of Ganges-Brahmaputra river sediments. Independently of changes in the sedimentary sources, the smectite/(illite + chlorite) ratio of cores located on the NE Bengal Fan indicates higher inputs of primary minerals (illite and chlorite) from the highlands of the river basins (relief) during glacial MIS 6, 4, 3, and 2 and an increased contribution of pedogenic minerals (smectite and kaolinite) during interglacial MIS 5 and 1. Maximum smectite/(illite + chlorite) ratios during the warm sub-stages of MIS 5 suggest an intensification of summer monsoon rainfall associated with higher rates of physical erosion of the Indo-Gangetic flood-plain and/or dominant summer hydrological conditions transporting a higher proportion of sediments deriving from the Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers to the NE Bengal Fan. In addition, a higher production of smectite in soils of the Indo-Gangetic flood-plain during periods of intensification of monsoon rainfall cannot be excluded.

Contiene además supplementary material.-- This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited., We have developed a wine fermentation procedure that takes advantage of the metabolic features of a previously characterized Metschnikowia pulcherrima strain in order to reduce ethanol production. It involves the use of M. pulcherrima/Saccharomyces cerevisiae mixed cultures, controlled oxygenation conditions during the first 48 h of fermentation, and anaerobic conditions thereafter. The influence of different oxygenation regimes and initial inoculum composition on yeast physiology and final ethanol content was studied. The impact of oxygenation on yeast physiology goes beyond the first aerated step and influences yields and survival rates during the anaerobic stage. The activity of M. pulcherrima in mixed oxygenated cultures resulted in a clear reduction in ethanol yield, as compared to S. cerevisiae. Despite relatively low initial cell numbers, S. cerevisiae always predominated in mixed cultures by the end of the fermentation process. Strain replacement was faster under low oxygenation levels. M. pulcherrima confers an additional advantage in terms of dissolved oxygen, which drops to zero after a few hours of culture, even under highly aerated conditions, and this holds true for mixed cultures. Alcohol reduction values about 3.7 % (v/v) were obtained for mixed cultures under high aeration, but they were associated to unacceptable volatile acidity levels. In contrast, under optimized conditions, only 0.35 g/L acetic acid was produced, for an alcohol reduction of 2.2 % (v/v), and almost null dissolved oxygen during the process., Authors would like to thank Cristina Juez Ojeda andMiguel Ángel Fernández Recio for excellent technical assistance, the YeSVitE consortium (EU project, 7FP-IRSES-GA no. 612441) for helpful discussions, and Laura López Ocaña (CECT) for help with yeast species confirmation. This work was supported by grants MINECO AGL2012-32064 and INIA RM2012-00007-00-00 from the Spanish Government. M.Q. was the recipient of a CSIC training contract, JAEDoc, co-funded by the European Social Fund of the EU.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license., Respiration of sugars by non-Saccharomyces yeasts has been recently proposed for lowering alcohol levels in wine. Development of industrial fermentation processes based on such an approach requires, amongst other steps, the identification of yeast strains which are able to grow and respire under the relatively harsh conditions found in grape must. This work describes the characterization of a collection of non-Saccharomyces yeast strains in order to identify candidate yeast strains for this specific application. It involved the estimation of respiratory quotient (RQ) values under aerated conditions, at low pH and high sugar concentrations, calculation of yields of ethanol and other relevant metabolites, and characterization of growth responses to the main stress factors found during the first stages of alcoholic fermentation. Physiological features of some strains of Metschnikowia pulcherrima or two species of Kluyveromyces, suggest they are suitable for lowering ethanol yields by respiration. The unsuitability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains for this purpose was not due to ethanol yields (under aerated conditions they are low enough for a significant reduction in final ethanol content), but to the high acetic acid yields under these growth conditions. According to results from controlled aeration fermentations with one strain of M. pulcherrima, design of an aeration regime allowing for lowering ethanol yields though preserving grape must components from excessive oxidation, would be conceivable., This work was funded by the AGL2012-32064 and RM2012-00007-00-00 projects from the Spanish Government. M.Q. was the recipient of a CSIC training JAE-Doc contract, co-funded by the European Social Fund of the EU.

Gas hydrates attracted intense research interest when it was first recognised some 70 years ago that they were responsible for the blockage of flow lines, valves and well heads, thereby causing great loss of production and other severe safety hazards to the oil and gas industry. After many decades, these compounds are still the topic of research activities in various multi-disciplinary fields, including chemical and petroleum engineering, earth and geophysics, chemistry and environmental sciences. This is not only due to the great impact that these compounds have on the oil and gas industry, but also to the potential applications they have in many evolving areas, including, but not only, natural gas storage and transportation, carbon dioxide sequestration, and sea-water desalination. It is generally accepted that gas hydrates represent the largest source of hydrocarbons on earth, something which has not been appreciated until only recently. Management, either prevention or application or both, of gas hydrates requires a complete knowledge and understanding of the formation, decomposition and inhibition mechanisms of gas hydrates, which in turn demands advanced experimental methods and instrumental techniques for gas hydrate characterisation. This paper reviews a broad range of techniques that have been used for natural gas hydrate characterisation. It includes the basic physical science principles of each method and the gas hydrate properties that each method is capable of detecting, including some modern instrumental analyses that enable direct determination of gas hydrate phases and possible measurement of molecular interactions within the fluid phases. Copyright © 2009 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The adsorption of poly(N-vinylcaprolactam/N-vinylpyrrolidone/N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate), a commercial product with the trade name of Gaffix® VC-713 and currently used as a kinetic inhibitor for natural gas hydrates, has been experimentally studied at the air–liquid interface using surface tension measurements. The influence of polymer concentration and temperature on the adsorption of the polymer was analysed. The equilibrium experimental data obtained at both 293 K and 278 K has been fitted using the analogous surface equation of state for the Langmuir isotherm. Dynamic adsorption has been modelled using both diffusion-controlled and asymptotic models. The values of the surface tension and the surface excess at saturation showed that the polymer was very active at the air–liquid interface. Equilibrium surface tension indicated that temperature has a weak influence on the number of moles of Gaffix® VC-713 adsorbed on the interface. The dynamic adsorption was controlled by diffusion process initially, in which a rapid reduction in surface tension was observed. It was then followed by a slow polymer reorganization process. A strong dependence of the dynamic adsorption on both the temperature and the polymer concentrations was well demonstrated.

Two non-Saccharomyces wine yeast strains, Hanseniaspora guilliermondii 11104 and Pichia anomala 10590, selected as good producers of acetate esters when grown on synthetic microbiological medium, have been tested in wine fermentations as mixed cultures together with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Wines produced using mixed cultures showed levels of acetaldehyde, acetic acid, glycerol and total higher alcohols within the ranges described for wine, whereas an increase in acetate ester concentrations was found. Ethyl acetate was the main ester produced, and isoamyl acetate and 2-phenylethyl acetate made up the next largest group of ester compounds in the wines analysed. H. guilliermondii 11104 was found to be a strong producer of 2-phenylethyl acetate in both pure and mixed cultures whereas S. cerevisiae was the best producer of ethyl esters. Mixed cultures did not influence ethyl ester levels at all.

We present a critical review that encompasses the fundamentals and state-of-the-art knowledge of barium titanate-based piezoelectrics. First, the essential crystallography, thermodynamic relations, and concepts necessary to understand piezoelectricity and ferroelectricity in barium titanate are discussed. Strategies to optimize piezoelectric properties through microstructure control and chemical modification are also introduced. Thereafter, we systematically review the synthesis, microstructure, and phase diagrams of barium titanate-based piezoelectrics and provide a detailed compilation of their functional and mechanical properties. The most salient materials treated include the (Ba,Ca)(Zr,Ti)O3, (Ba,Ca)(Sn,Ti)O3, and (Ba,Ca)(Hf,Ti)O3 solid solution systems. The technological relevance of barium titanate-based piezoelectrics is also discussed and some potential market indicators are outlined. Finally, perspectives on productive lines of future research and promising areas for the applications of these ma...

A method has been developed for measurement in vitro of the simultaneous activities alcohol acetyltransferase (AATase) and ester hydrolase (EHase) in yeast extracts taking into account the possibility of interaction between the two opposite activities or the rapid inactivation of the AATase activity. A mathematical model, including as parameters a first order kinetic constant corresponding to the EHase activity and the inactivation constant of AATase, is proposed for the evaluation of AATase activity. To determine ester concentrations, the Headspace-SPME-GC technique has been used. The method has been successfully applied to three yeast strains belonging to the species Pichia anomala, Pichia heedii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the corresponding parameters for AATase and EHase have been calculated.

The influence of the uniaxial preload on the off-resonance actuation performance of piezoelectric ceramics was investigated for compressive preload values up to −80 MPa. The study was performed on soft-type lead zirconate titanate (PZT), being the most widely used piezoelectric material. The samples were analysed using the proportional loading method, which enables the simultaneous application of electrical and mechanical loads, thereby mimicking the real operation conditions over the full stress–strain range. An increase of the blocking stress and the longitudinal piezoelectric stress coefficient was observed for all the applied preload values. The optimum properties, a blocking stress of −56 MPa and a free strain of 0.23%, were obtained at a preload value of −40 MPa and electric field of 2 kV mm − 1. This represents an increase of 16% and 20%, respectively, as compared to the values obtained at the smallest preload. In addition, the maximum work output was increased by about 28%. Finally, the results obtained at the lowest preload of −4 MPa using the proportional loading method were compared to the operational ranges determined by other methods. The comparison revealed large discrepancies between the methods, originating from the different order of the application of electrical and mechanical fields and the inherent nonlinearity of ferroelectric materials. This discrepancy results in decreased actuator performance due to impedance mismatching, demonstrating the need for accurate determination of the actuator's operational range.

A double coupling bioreactor system was used to fast screen yeast strains for the production of acetate esters. Eleven yeast strains were used belonging to the genera Candida, Hanseniaspora, Metschnikowia, Pichia, Schizosaccharomyces and Zygosacharomyces, mainly isolated from grapes and wine, and two wine Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. The acetate ester forming activities of yeast strains belonging to the genera Hanseniaspora (Hanseniaspora guilliermondii and H. uvarum) and Pichia (Pichia anomala) showed different substrate specificities and were able to produce ethyl acetate, geranyl acetate, isoamyl acetate and 2-phenylethyl acetate. The influence of aeration culture conditions on the formation of acetate esters by non-Saccharomyces wine yeast and S. cerevisiae was examined by growing the yeasts on synthetic microbiological medium. S. cerevisiae produced low levels of acetate esters when the cells were cultured under highly aeration conditions, while, under the same conditions, H. guilliermondii 11104 and P. anomala 10590 were found to be strong producers of 2-phenylethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate, respectively.