We report the complete genome sequence of Zymomonas mobilis ZM4 (ATCC31821), an ethanologenic microorganism of interest for the production of fuel ethanol. The genome consists of 2,056,416 base pairs forming a circular chromosome with 1,998 open reading frames (ORFs) and three ribosomal RNA transcription units. The genome lacks recognizable genes for 6-phosphofructokinase, an essential enzyme in the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway, and for two enzymes in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex and malate dehydrogenase, so glucose can be metabolized only by the Entner-Doudoroff pathway. Whole genome microarrays were used for genomic comparisons with the Z. mobilis type strain ZM1 (ATCC10988) revealing that 54 ORFs predicted to encode for transport and secretory proteins, transcriptional regulators and oxidoreductase in the ZM4 strain were absent from ZM1. Most of these ORFs were also found to be actively transcribed in association with ethanol production by ZM4.Growing environmental concerns over the use and depletion of nonrenewable energy resources, together with the recent price increases and instabilities in the international oil markets have stimulated an increasing interest in the use of fermentation processes for the large-scale production of alternative fuels such as ethanol. As such, ethanol-producing microorganisms, such as the Gram-negative bacterium Z. mobilis, have potential for the production of fuel ethanol.Z. mobilis, which is used in the tropics to produce pulque and alcoholic palm wines, uses the Entner-Doudoroff (ED) pathway to metabolize glucose, which results in only 1 mole of ATP being produced per mole of glucose 1 . The potential advantages of using Z. mobilis for ethanol production include: (i) its high and specific rates of sugar uptake and ethanol production, (ii) its production of ethanol at yields close to the theoretical maximum with relatively low biomass formation, (iii) its high ethanol tolerance of up to 16% (vol/vol) and (iv) its facility for genetic manipulation 2-6 . However, wild strains of Z. mobilis can use only glucose, fructose and sucrose as carbon substrates, so recent research has focused on the development of recombinant strains capable of using pentose sugars 7,8 for the conversion of cheaper lignocellulosic hydrolysates to ethanol. Improved mutants 9-11 as well as the application of metabolic flux analysis, sitedirected mutagenesis, specific gene deletion/insertion and metabolic engineering for strain developlment 12,13 have also been reported. A physical map of Z. mobilis ZM4 genome and the ribosomal transcriptional unit have been previously reported 14,15 . In the current paper, the features of the complete sequence of the Z. mobilis ZM4 genome are presented and genomic characters are compared with those of another Z. mobilis strain, ZM1.

The aim of this paper is to propose a new method to identify main paths in a technological domain using patent citations. Previous approaches for using main path analysis have greatly improved our understanding of actual technological trajectories but nonetheless have some limitations. They have high potential to miss some dominant patents from the identified main paths; nonetheless, the high network complexity of their main paths makes qualitative tracing of trajectories problematic. The proposed method searches backward and forward paths from the high-persistence patents which are identified based on a standard genetic knowledge persistence algorithm. We tested the new method by applying it to the desalination and the solar photovoltaic domains and compared the results to output from the same domains using a prior method. The empirical results show that the proposed method can dramatically reduce network complexity without missing any dominantly important patents. The main paths identified by our approach for two test cases are almost 10x less complex than the main paths identified by the existing approach. The proposed approach identifies all dominantly important patents on the main paths, but the main paths identified by the existing approach miss about 20% of dominantly important patents.

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is subacute necrotizing lymphadenitis characterized by fever, leukopenia and cervical lymphadenopathy. There are few reports on the clinical characteristics and laboratory findings of KFD in the pediatric literature. In this study, we evaluate the characteristics and outcome of KFD in children. A total of 412 patients were studied with fever and peripheral lymphadenopathy at Pusan National University Hospital from January 1998 to December 2003. Among the total 412 there were 16 patients diagnosed with KFD by lymph node biopsy. We analyze the clinical, laboratory and outcome after review of the medical records retrospectively. The mean age of the patients was 10.6 +/- 3.4 yr (range: 4-17 yr). The male to female ratio was 1:1. Almost all patients, except two, had cervical lymph node swelling. The size of the involved lymph node was less than 4 cm in the greatest dimension in 75% of the patients. All the children had fever as the chief complaint and the mean duration of the fever was 17.7 +/- 11.2 days (range: 2-122 days). Approximately 87% of the patients had leukopenia (WBC < 4000/mm(3)) and 43.8% of the patients had a mild increase in the transaminases on liver function testing. A total of 8 out of the 16 patients were initially misdiagnosed as an infectious disease and treated with antibiotics which caused prolonged hospitalization for most patients. Six patients were treated with prednisone and the prolonged fever subsided immediately after steroid therapy. KFD should be considered in the differential diagnosis of prolonged fever in children with cervical lymphadenopathy. Early cervical lymph node biopsy is necessary to minimize inappropriate examinations and treatments in such cases.