L’envers du miroir: le verlan, une histoire d’ouf!

Des de ja fa uns quants anys existeix un fenomen lingüístic a França que encara avui dia no deixa de sorprendre ni de cridar l'atenció; es tracta d'una parla, o més aviat d’un argot que s’anomena verlan. El verlan, doncs, és un argot que troba el seu origen als barris marginals dels afores de les ciutats (les banlieues), i per la qual cosa s’associa normalment a la classe baixa i marginal d’aquestes. Així, aquest argot es va convertir en un autèntic “art del parlar” del sector juvenil del segle XX, el qual era utilitzat bàsicament per marcar una diferència de classe social i que els seu parlants es poguessin comunicar entre ells sense que ningú altre que no formés part del seu entorn pugui entendre el què deien. El verlan és un argot que es caracteritza per fer una inversió de les paraules, però tot i que sembli inventada, aquesta inversió de fonemes es fa segons unes regles i en funció del nombre de síl•labes del terme. Els mitjans de comunicació van contribuir molt en l’expansió d’aquest argot, però el moviment hip-hop va ser un dels principals mitjans d’expansió, ja que va "vulgaritzar" el verlan i va difondre’l a totes les capes de la societat a partir de les seves peculiars cançons. Així doncs, la pregunta que molts ens plantegem és la de si el verlan és realment una amenaça per al francès estàndard o no.

Lipase Improvement: Goals and strategies

Lipases have received great attention as industrial biocatalysts in areas like oils and fats processing, detergents, baking, cheese making, surface cleaning, or fine chemistry . They can catalyse reactions of insoluble substrates at the lipid-water interface, preserving their catalytic activity in organic solvents. This makes of lipases powerful tools for catalysing not only hydrolysis, but also various reverse reactions such as esterification, transesterification, aminolysis, or thiotransesterifications in anhydrous organic solvents. Moreover, lipases catalyse reactions with high specificity, regio and enantioselectivity, becoming the most used enzymes in synthetic organic chemistry. Therefore, they display important advantages over classical catalysts, as they can catalyse reactions with reduced side products, lowered waste treatment costs, and under mild temperature and pressure conditions. Accordingly, the use of lipases holds a great promise for green and economical process chemistry.

Relació entre la composició dels horts familiars i l'ús de les plantes medicinals: estudi de cas a la comunitat Tsimane' de Santa Maria

Els horts familiars són el focus de cada cop més estudis científics per la seva importància socioecològica, sobretot en les comunitats rurals o indígenes. Aquest estudi, desenvolupat a la comunitat indígena Tsimane’ de Santa Maria, té l’objectiu de determinar si existeix una relació entre la composició dels horts familiars i l’ús de les plantes medicinals. A més, també descriu i analitza les característiques bàsiques dels horts: les espècies presents, el tipus de maneig, les diferències en la implicació d’homes i dones, etc. A partir dels resultats obtinguts es pot concloure que la diversitat d’espècies trobada és de 102 (30 d’elles medicinals), i les diferències de gènere en la implicació en els horts familiars són significatives: les dones tenen mes plantes medicinals que els homes. Tanmateix, no trobem una relació entre el cultiu de plantes medicinals i la seva utilització.

Why not all young firms invest in R&D

This article aims to analyze the different impact that some factors may exert on the probability that a small young firm invests intensively in R&D. Recently, an increasing amount of the literature makes reference to the vital role played by a small number of young firms in generating jobs and increasing efficiency levels. However, not all new firms invest in R&D. Departing from the definition of YICs (firms younger than 6 years old, fewer than 250 employees and with more than 15% of their revenues invested in R&D activities), and with an extensive sample of the Spanish Community Innovation Survey between 2004- 2010, we try to determine: i) those factors that cause firms to become YICs (innovative young small firms) or YNICs (moderately innovative young small firms); ii) what is the difference in the impact of those factors between YICs and YNICs. Our results show that factors such as initial innovation capacity and cooperation in R&D projects enhance the probability of becoming a YIC. Nevertheless, factors such as export potential and market uncertainty may influence the decision to invest moderately and become a YNIC. Keywords: Innovation, Policy, YICs. JEL Classifications: O31, D21

Combining phospholipases and a liquid lipase for one-step biodiesel production using crude oils

Background Enzymatic biodiesel is becoming an increasingly popular topic in bioenergy literature because of its potential to overcome the problems posed by chemical processes. However, the high cost of the enzymatic process still remains the main drawback for its industrial application, mostly because of the high price of refined oils. Unfortunately, low cost substrates, such as crude soybean oil, often release a product that hardly accomplishes the final required biodiesel specifications and need an additional pretreatment for gums removal. In order to reduce costs and to make the enzymatic process more efficient, we developed an innovative system for enzymatic biodiesel production involving a combination of a lipase and two phospholipases. This allows performing the enzymatic degumming and transesterification in a single step, using crude soybean oil as feedstock, and converting part of the phospholipids into biodiesel. Since the two processes have never been studied together, an accurate analysis of the different reaction components and conditions was carried out. Results Crude soybean oil, used as low cost feedstock, is characterized by a high content of phospholipids (900 ppm of phosphorus). However, after the combined activity of different phospholipases and liquid lipase Callera Trans L, a complete transformation into fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs >95%) and a good reduction of phosphorus (P <5 ppm) was achieved. The combination of enzymes allowed avoidance of the acid treatment required for gums removal, the consequent caustic neutralization, and the high temperature commonly used in degumming systems, making the overall process more eco-friendly and with higher yield. Once the conditions were established, the process was also tested with different vegetable oils with variable phosphorus contents. Conclusions Use of liquid lipase Callera Trans L in biodiesel production can provide numerous and sustainable benefits. Besides reducing the costs derived from enzyme immobilization, the lipase can be used in combination with other enzymes such as phospholipases for gums removal, thus allowing the use of much cheaper, non-refined oils. The possibility to perform degumming and transesterification in a single tank involves a great efficiency increase in the new era of enzymatic biodiesel production at industrial scale.

High-growth firms and innovation: an empirical analysis for Spanish firms

This paper analyses the effect of R&D investment on firm growth. We use an extensive sample of Spanish manufacturing and service firms. The database comprises diverse waves of Spanish Community Innovation Survey and covers the period 2004–2008. First, a probit model corrected for sample selection analyses the role of innovation on the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF). Second, a quantile regression technique is applied to explore the determinants of firm growth. Our database shows that a small number of firms experience fast growth rates in terms of sales or employees. Our results reveal that R&D investments positively affect the probability of becoming a HGF. However, differences appear between manufacturing and service firms. Finally, when we study the impact of R&D investment on firm growth, quantile estimations show that internal R&D presents a significant positive impact for the upper quantiles, while external R&D shows a significant positive impact up to the median. Keywords : High-growth firms, Firm growth, Innovation activity. JEL Classifications : L11, L25, L26, O30