† The authors declare no conflict of interest. Electronic Supplementary Information (ESI) available: Ethanol yields from the SSF of CELF pretreated corn stover at enzyme loading of 5 mg-protein g-glucan-in-RCS -1 , component mass balance from the SSF of DA pretreated corn stover at enzyme loadings of 15 mg-protein gglucan-in-RCS -1 , cell viability of SSF flasks with CELF pretreated corn stover at an enzyme loading of 2 mg-protein g-glucan-in-RCS -1 . See A major challenge to economically produce ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass is to achieve industrially relevant ethanol titers (> 50 g L -1 ) to control operating and capital costs for downstream ethanol operations while maintaining high ethanol yields. However, due to reduced fermentation effectiveness at high biomass solids loadings, excessive amounts of enzymes are typically required to obtain reasonable ethanol titers, thereby trading off reduced operating and capital costs with high enzyme costs. In this study, we applied our newly developed Co-Solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation (CELF) pretreatment to produce highly digestible glucan-rich solids from corn stover. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) was then applied to pretreated solids from CELF at 15.5 wt% solids loadings (corresponding to 11 wt% glucan loadings) in modified shake flasks to achieve an ethanol titer of 58.8 g L -1 at 89.2% yield with an enzyme loading of 15 mg-protein g-glucan-in-raw-corn-stover -1 (-RCS) -1 in only 5 days. By comparison, SSF of corn stover solids from dilute acid pretreatment at 18.3 wt% solids loading (or 10 wt% glucan loadings) only achieved an ethanol titer and yield of 47.8 g L -1 and 73.0%, respectively, despite needing longer fermentation times (~20 days) and an additional 18 h of prehydrolysis at 50°C. Remarkably, although longer fermentation times were required at more economical enzyme loadings of 5 and 2 mg-protein g-glucan-in-RCS -1 , high solids SSF of CELF pretreated corn stover realized final ethanol titers consistently above 50 g L -1 and yields over 80%.

An exclusive study of the characteristics of the interactions accompanied by the backward emission (θLab ≥ 90°) of relativistic and fast hadrons in the collisions of 4.5 A GeV/c 32S beam with emulsion nuclei is carried out. The experimental multiplicity distributions of different particles emitted in the forward (θLab < 90°) and backward hemispheres due to the interactions with the two emulsion components (CNO, AgBr) are presented and analysed. The correlations between the multiplicities of the different emitted particles are also investigated. This study reveals that there are signatures for a collective mechanism, which plays a role in the production of particles in the backward hemisphere. Hence, the backward multiplicity distribution of the emitted shower or grey particles at 4.5 A GeV/c incident momentum can be represented by a decay exponential law formula independent of the projectile size. The exponent of the power was found to increase with decreasing target size. The experimental data favour the idea that the backward particles were emitted due to the decay of the system in the latter stage of the reaction. While the mean values of the shower particles emitted in the forward hemisphere ⟨nfs⟩ are strongly dependent on the projectile size and incident energy, the mean value of the multiplicity of the shower particles flying into the backward hemisphere ⟨nbs⟩ are found to be only a function of the target size (i.e. impact parameter). Therefore, the results yield quite interesting information regarding the mechanism of the backward particle production in heavy ion interactions. The present data are believed to support the mechanism, which considers the backward particle production as a consequence of the isotropic decay of a highly excited target system, in its rest frame, after the forward particle emission.

Cytokines in follicular fluid (FF) are important for reproduction as they modulate oocyte maturation and ovulation which influence subsequent fertilization, development of early embryo and potential for implantation. We evaluated FF cytokines in women who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and their association with fertilized oocytes, embryo quality and pregnancy outcome. FF belonging to 38 patients including 18 polycystic ovary (PCO) and 20 male/unexplained infertility patients were investigated for granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), regulated upon activation normal T cell expressed and presumably secreted (RANTES), tumour necrosis factor (TNFα), interferon gamma (IFNγ) and interleukins (IL-4 and IL-2) by bead-based sandwich immunoassay. Our findings revealed that on the day of oocyte retrieval, G-CSF was positively correlated with the number of fertilized oocytes, while TNFα detection was associated with reduced number of fertilized oocytes. Only G-CSF showed significant positive effect to the pregnancy outcome although the cytokines studied were not associated with embryo quality. PCO as the cause of infertility did not show an association with cytokines in FF. The functions of cytokines in reproduction are likely to be complex, and cytokine evaluation may offer insight to the understanding of the mechanisms leading to success or failure of assisted reproduction.