Vol. 41 No. 2 (2009)

Cyclooxygenase (COX), an enzyme involved in the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostaglandins, exists in two isoforms, which are COX-1 and COX-2. Despite the similarities of COX-1 and COX-2, the two isoforms show subtle differences in amino acid composition at the active sites. Since COX-1 has isoleucine, a bulkier amino acid at position 523 than COX-2

This work studied eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a class of perturbed pairwise comparison matrices (PCMs). This type of matrices arises from Analytical Hierarchical Process with inconsistency comparison. By employing some nice structures of the PCMs, we show that the object dimension of size n ≥ 3 can be reduced into a case of size 3, hence simplify the studies.

Poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) is very attractive synthetic polymer due to its properties, such as a high permeability, the lack of toxicity, and also biodegradability. However, it has limited application because of low melting point (60 °C), high crystallinity, and brittleness. The aim of the experiments is designed to improve the properties of PCL by formation of their polymers with 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propandiol monomers with various chain length as a raw material to prepare poly(urethane-ester). These polymers were synthesized by a ring-opening polymerization of 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propandiol and…

Laccase of Polyporus sp. S133 was able to oxidize most of the 3 different rings amount polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) tested. Phenanthrene was removed by 89% followed by chrysene and benzo[a]pyrene which were oxidized by 66 and 55%, respectively. Addition of 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HBT) to the reaction mixture increased oxidation of PAHs, especially phenanthrene was almost completely removed from the reaction mixture. Oxidation of chrysene and benzo[a]anthracene increased 12 and 10% with the mediator to 78 and 65% in the presence of HBT. PAH-quinones as oxidation products were formed…

Although mangrove is one of important ecosystems in the world, it has been abused and exploited by human for various purposes. Monitoring mangrove is therefore required to maintain a balance between economy and conservation and provides up-to-date information for rehabilitation. Optical remote sensing data have delivered such information, however ever-changing atmospheric disturbance may significantly decrease thematic content. In this research, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) fully polarimetric data were evaluated to present an alternative for mangrove mapping. Assessment using three…