Abstract The sucrose isomerase SmuA from Serratia plymuthica catalyses the production of isomaltulose, an artificial sweetener used in food industry. To suppress formation hygroscopic by-product trehalulose we applied a semirational protein engineering strategy inspired by “battleship” board game. After seven cycles introducing amino acid exchanges around active site and investigating their inf...

The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are considered to be one of the most physically and chemically extreme terrestrial environments on the Earth. However, little is known about the organisms involved in nitrogen transformations in these environments. In this study, we investigated the diversity and abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) in four McMurdo Dry Valleys wit...

Consider a game in a given set of intervals (and their implied interval graph G) in which the adversary chooses an independent setX in G. The goal is to discover this hidden independent set X by making the fewest queries of the form “Is point p covered by an interval inX?” Our interest in this problem stems from two applications: experimental gene discovery with PCR technology and the game of B...

Having control over the chemistry of colloid surfaces has attracted the interest of scientists for many years as they play a critical role in many chemical and life science processes; by chemically modifying the surface or by adding other components one can enhance their stability and performance. Over the past decades, different experimental approaches have been developed with this aim and a v...

Recent literature provides initial evidence that sound can be used for cognitive development purposes in blind children. In this paper we present the design, development, and usability testing of AudioBattleShip, a sound-based interactive environment for blind children. AudioBattleShip is an interactive version of the board Battleship game, providing different interfaces for both sighted and bl...