Phylogenetic diversity of aerobic spore-forming Bacillalles isolated from Brazilian soils.

The phylum Firmicutes comprises seven classes where most species are either aerobic or anaerobic endospore former. Inside Firmicutes, species allocated in the genus Bacillus and related genera are collectively named aerobic endospore-forming bacteria (AEFB), and the soil is their major reservoir. AEFB have great importance in health, agriculture, and biotechnology although the more studied species are Bacillus subtilis and the human pathogens Bacillus cereus and Bacillus anthracis. AEFB have great importance in health, agriculture, and biotechnology; although the knowledge about these organisms is based on few species, notably, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, and Bacillus anthracis. In this work, we generated partial 16S rRNA gene sequences of both strands of 192 AEFB strains isolated from soils of Distrito Federal, Brazil (SDF strains). The resulting consensus sequences were used to obtain taxonomic assignment and establish the phylogenetic relationships among these strains. Through this approach, we could observe that classified SDF strains were distributed among genera Bacillus (169 strains; 88.02%), Paenibacillus (11; 5.73%), Lysinibacillus (6; 3.13%), Brevibacillus (4; 2.08%), Terribacillus (1; 0.52%), and Rummeliibacillus (1; 0.52%). Phylogenetic trees revealed these 192 SDF strains can be segregated into eight groups spanning families Bacillaceae and Paenibacillaceae belonging to the order Bacillales. To expand the knowledge about the diversity of these SDF strains, further studies regarding characterization with different methodologies are underway.

Adsorption of flexible polymer chains on a surface: Effects of different solvent conditions.

Polymer chains undergoing a continuous adsorption-desorption transition are studied through extensive computer simulations. A three-dimensional self-avoiding walk lattice model of a polymer chain grafted onto a surface has been treated for different solvent conditions. We have used an advanced contact-density chain-growth algorithm, in which the density of contacts can be directly obtained. From this quantity, the order parameter and its fourth-order Binder cumulant are computed, as well as the corresponding critical exponents and the adsorption-desorption transition temperature. As the number of configurations with a given number of surface contacts and monomer-monomer contacts is independent of the temperature and solvent conditions, it can be easily applied to get results for different solvent parameter values without the need of any extra simulations. In analogy to continuous magnetic phase transitions, finite-size-scaling methods have been employed. Quite good results for the critical properties and phase diagram of very long single polymer chains have been obtained by properly taking into account the effects of corrections to scaling. The study covers all solvent effects, going from the limit of super-self-avoiding walks, characterized by effective monomer-monomer repulsion, to poor solvent conditions that enable the formation of compact polymer structures.

Probability distribution of the order parameter in the directed percolation universality class.

The probability distributions of the order parameter for two models in the directed percolation universality class were evaluated. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed for the one-dimensional generalized contact process and the Domany-Kinzel cellular automaton. In both cases, the density of active sites was chosen as the order parameter. The criticality of those models was obtained by solely using the corresponding probability distribution function. It has been shown that the present method, which has been successfully employed in treating equilibrium systems, is indeed also useful in the study of nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Universality class of the two-dimensional site-diluted Ising model.

In this work, we evaluate the probability distribution function of the order parameter for the two-dimensional site-diluted Ising model. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations have been performed for different spin concentrations p (0.70

Percolation on two- and three-dimensional lattices.

In this work we apply a highly efficient Monte Carlo algorithm recently proposed by Newman and Ziff to treat percolation problems. The site and bond percolations are studied on a number of lattices in two and three dimensions. Quite good results for the wrapping probabilities, correlation length critical exponent, and critical concentration are obtained for the square, simple cubic, hexagonal close packed, and hexagonal lattices by using relatively small systems. We also confirm the universal aspect of the wrapping probabilities regarding site and bond dilution.