Total Ionizing Dose/Displacement Damage Dose. – Level of performance .... Kernel interrupts have been disabled to allow the test running full ... Test "B" checks the Floating Point Unit (FPU) with a maximum of data transfer to the FPU. A buffer ...

Fermentation of enzymatic hydrolysate of waste newspaper was investigated for cellulosic ethanol production in this study. Various nonionic and ionic surfactants were applied for waste newspaper pretreatment to increase the enzymatic digestibility. The surfactant-pretreated newspaper was enzymatically digested in 0.05 M sodium citrate buffer (pH 4.8) with varying solid content, filter paper unit loading (FPU/g newspaper), and ratio of filter paper unit/beta-glucosidase unit (FPU/CBU). Newspaper pretreated with the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) demonstrated the highest sugar yield. The addition of Tween-80 in the enzymatic hydrolysis process enhanced the enzymatic digestibility of newspaper pretreated with all of the surfactants. Enzymatic hydrolysis of SDS-pretreated newspaper with 15% solid content, 15 FPU/g newspaper, and FPU/CBU of 1:4 resulted in a newspaper hydrolysate conditioning 29.07 g/L glucose and 4.08 g/L xylose after 72 h of incubation at 50 degrees C. The fermentation of the enzymatic hydrolysate with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia stipitis, and their co-culture produced 14.29, 13.45, and 14.03 g/L of ethanol, respectively. Their corresponding ethanol yields were 0.43, 0.41, and 0.42 g/g. PMID:19936631

Either the natural biodegradation process or the industrial hydrolytic process requires synergistic interactions between various cellulases. However, it is sometimes impeded by low hydrolytic rate of existing cellulases and the lack of accessory enzymes. Herein, the ability of a commercial cellulase (Spezyme CP, from Genencor) to degrade steam explosion-pretreated corn stover was significantly improved. Firstly, a fungal cellulase producer, Aspergillus fumigatus ECU0811, was isolated from hundreds of soil samples. A 96-deep-well microscale-based platform was developed here to reduce the labor-intensive screening work and proved to be consistent with macroscale screening work. After optimization of fermentation, 3% corn cob could induce A. fumigatus ECU0811 to yield the highest cellulase production. Based on the high activities of ?-glucosidase and xylanase by A. fumigatus ECU0811, 0.91 and 125 U/mg protein, respectively, an enzyme cocktail was composed with a fixed dosage of Spezyme CP (CPCel) at 14.2 filter paper units (FPU)/g glucan and varied dosages of A. fumigatus cellulase (AFCel). Consequently, the glucan-to-glucose conversion of corn stover was increased from 25.6% in the presence of CPCel at a dosage of 14.2 FPU/g glucan to 99.5% in the presence of the enzyme cocktail (14.2 FPU CPCel plus 1.21 FPU AFCel per gram of glucan). On the other side, it reduced the total protein amount of CPCel by as much as tenfold, which extremely improved the hydrolytic rate of Spezyme CP and reduced its dosage. PMID:22086563

Since many embedded applications involve intensive mathematic operations, floating-point arithmetic units (FPU) have paramount importance in embedded systems. However, previous implementations of FPU either require much manual work or only support special functions (e.g. reciprocal, square root, logarithm, etc.). In this paper, we present an automatic method to synthesize general FPU by aligned partition. Based on the novel partition algorithm and the concept of grouping floating-point numbers into zones, our method supports general functions of wide, irreducible domain. The synthesized FPU achieves smaller area, higher frequency, and greater accuracy. Experimental results show that our method achieves 1) on average 90% smaller and 50% faster indexer than the conventional automatic method; 2) on the hyperbolic functions, 20k times smaller error rate and 50% use of LUTs and flip-flops than the conventional manual design.   

We investigated the effect of pretreatment on the physicochemical characteristics-crystallinity, bed porosity, and volumetric specific surface of soybean hulls and production of cellulolytic enzymes in solid-state fermentation of Trichoderma reesei and Aspergillus oryzae cultures. Mild acid and alkali and steam pretreatments significantly increased crystallinity and bed porosity without significant change inholocellulosic composition of substrate. Crystalline and porous steam-pretreated soybean hulls inoculated with T. reesei culture had 4 filter paper units (FPU)/g-ds, 0.6?IU/g-ds ?-glucosidase, and 45?IU/g-ds endocellulase, whereas untreated hulls had 0.75?FPU/g-ds, 0.06?IU/g-ds ?-glucosidase, and 7.29?IU/g-ds endocellulase enzyme activities. In A. oryzae steam-pretreated soybean hulls had 47.10?IU/g-ds endocellulase compared to 30.82?IU/g-ds in untreated soybean hulls. Generalized linear statistical model fitted to enzyme activity data showed that effects of physicochemical characteristics on enzymes production were both culture and enzyme specific. The paper shows a correlation between substrate physicochemical properties and enzyme production. PMID:21755043

In this paper, an economic analysis of systems adopted as the perimeter zone system in office buildings such as convector, fan coil unit(FCU) and fan powered unit(FPU) was performed, with the variable air volume(VAV) system applied in the interior zone. The initial cost of each alternative, such as the construction cost of the air conditioning system, was determined by planning and design, and energy cost as running cost was calculated on the basis of the energy consumption of each system using a computer simulation. Economic analysis was performed using life cycle cost(LCC), with the present value method for the air conditioning system in the perimeter zone. The results show that FPU is the most economical air conditioning system. When VAV is applied to the interior zone, LCC of the FCU is reduced by 6% and the cost of FPU is reduced 9% less than that of the convector system.   

Steam and aqueous pretreatments have been shown to be effective ways of rendering lignocellulosic residue susceptible to enzymatic or microbial attack. This is due to the degradation of lignin and hemicellulose and the increase in the pore volume and the corresponding area surface available to the cellulase. However, the susceptibility of the solid residue to enzymatic hydrolysis is often not satisfactory because a high cellulase dose is required, up to 100 units FPU/g of substrate, to obtain a high degree of saccharification. The present work compares autohydrolysis and partial acid hydrolysis using SO{sub 2} and HCl with respect to their ability of bringing about optimal accessibility of wheat straw in the production of sugars. (orig.).

Rice straw has attracted significant interest in Japan as a potential raw material for biorefineries. Combination of hot-compressed water treatment (HCWT) and wet disk milling (WDM) was investigated to improve the enzymatic digestibility of rice straw and enhance sugar recovery yield. Rice straw, cut to FPU/g-substrate cellulase loading. Autoclaving at 150 °C leaked a 35% arabinose effluence in the liquid phase. Hydrolysis via WDM with HCWT required a lower enzyme loading (5 FPU/g-substrate) than either pretreatment process in isolation for >70% xylose and 80% glucose yield. Economical analysis indicate that enzymes cost for ethanol production is reduced by 19-67% by WDM with HCWT. PMID:22130080

In the search for an efficient producer of cellulolytic enzymes, Acremonium cellulolyticus strain C-1 was subjected to mutagenesis using UV-irradiation and N-methyl-N'nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (NTG) and strain CF-2612 was isolated. Strain CF-2612 exhibited higher filter paperase (FPase) activities (17.8 U/ml) than the parent strain C-1 (12.3 U/ml). Soluble protein production and beta-glucosidase activity from strain CF-2612 were also significantly improved. FPase activity, cellulase productivity and yield of CF-2612 using batch culture with 5% Solka Floc in a 2-l jar fermentor at 30 degrees C reached 18.0 U/ml, 150.0 FPU/l/h and 360.0 FPU/g carbohydrate, respectively; when fed-batch culture was used with Solka Floc, these values reached 34.6 U/ml, 240.3 FPU/l/h and 346.0 FPU/g carbohydrate, respectively. It was observed that more hydrolyzed glucose was released from pretreated eucalyptus with the enzyme of strain CF-2612, compared with that of the commercial cellulase GC-220. This result was attributed to the higher ratio of beta-glucosidase/FPase activity of strain CF-2612. Three distinguishable phases including the periods of primary or second mycelial growth and mycelial fragmentation were proposed in batch culture by A. cellulolyticus. PMID:19269588

Some low-yield sulfite pulping operations ferment spent sulfite liquor (SSL) to remove biochemical oxygen demand associated with dissolved sugars while at the same time generating ethanol as a salable product. Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of primary clarifier sludge in a medium of SSL was proposed as a means of reducing the amount of sludge to be disposed of while at the same time increasing ethanol productivity. In this article, the option of fortifying existing SSL fermenting processes with the sugars produced via in situ enzymatic hydrolysis of sulfite primary clarifier sludge (PCS) has been explored. In 100% SSL PCS hydrolysis rates as high as 3.4 g/(L{center_dot}h) were observed at an initial enzyme loading of 10 filter paper units (FPU)/g PCS. To reduce the deleterious effects of glucose inhibition, single-stage SSF was carried out using cellulose enzymes and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The production rate of ethanol in SSL was increased by as much as 25% through the SSF process. 12 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.

Processes that produce only ethanol from lignocellulosics display poor economics. This is generally overcome by constructing large facilities having satisfactory economies of scale, thus making financing onerous and hindering the development of suitable technologies. Lignol Innovations has developed a biorefining technology that employs an ethanol-based organosolv step to separate lignin, hemicellulose components, and extractives from the cellulosic fraction of woody biomass. The resultant cellulosic fraction is highly susceptible to enzymatic hydrolysis, generating very high yields of glucose (>90% in 12-24 h) with typical enzyme loadings of 10-20 FPU (filter paper units)/g. This glucose is readily converted to ethanol, or possibly other sugar platform chemicals, either by sequential or simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. The liquor from the organosolv step is processed by well-established unit operations to recover lignin, furfural, xylose, acetic acid, and a lipophylic extractives fraction. The process ethanol is recovered and recycled back to the process. The resulting recycled process water is of a very high quality, low BOD5, and suitable for overall system process closure. Significant benefits can be attained in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, as per the Kyoto Protocol. Revenues from the multiple products, particularly the lignin, ethanol and xylose fractions, ensure excellent economics for the process even in plants as small as 100 mtpd (metric tonnes per day) dry woody biomass input a scale suitable for processing wood residues produced by a single large sawmill. PMID:15930566

Woody materials are generally resistant to enzymatic saccharification unless they undergo harsh fiber disrupting pre-treatments such as steam explosion. In this study, enzymatic hydrolysis of steam-exploded hardwood was investigated using various conditions and commercial cellulase preparations. Hydrolysis times were kept below 24 h in order to approach industrially realistic conditions. The optimal conditions for enzymatic hydrolysis were found to be 55 degrees C and a pH of about 4.5. During enzymatic hydrolysis, acetate was released from the hemicellulose fraction. Increasing the dry matter concentration had a negative effect on glucose yields. Using fermentors with pH control, 66% of the cellulose in steam-exploded hardwood could be hydrolyzed to glucose within 12 h using an enzyme dose of 25 filter paper units (FPU)/g of dry matter. For 24 h hydrolysis maximum cellulose saccharification (71%) was observed at 25 FPU/g, and increasing the enzyme dose further did not increase the sugar yield. PMID:20530898

The susceptibility of sugarcane leaves to cellulase hydrolysis by GC220 cellulase (10 filter paper units (FPU)/gram dry weight basis (g, DS)) for 72 h was compared after pretreatment by autoclaving at 121 ^oC, 15 pounds per square inch (lb/in^2) in the presence of either dilute sulfuric acid or lime. The optimal (from those evaluated) conditions for each type of pretreatment of green sugarcane leaves (20-40 mesh particle) at 6% weight by volume (w/v, DS), were found to be 1.5% (w/v) sulfuric acid and 2% (w/v) calcium hydroxide for 30 and 15 min, respectively. The acid pretreated samples released more glucose than the lime treated ones (5.7% and 3.9% weight by weight (w/w, DS), respectively). Accellerase(TM) 1000 hydrolysis (160 FPU/g, DS) of the dilute sulfuric acid pretreated ground sugar...

The feasibility of three-stage hydrolysis of steam-exploded corn stover at high-substrate concentration was investigated. When substrate concentration was 30% and enzyme loading was 15-30 FPU/g cellulose, three-stage (9+9+12 h) hydrolysis could reach a hydrolysis yield of 59.9-81.4% in 30 h. Compared with one-stage hydrolysis for 72 h, an increase of 34-37% in hydrolysis yield could be achieved. When steam-exploded corn stover was used as the substrate for enzyme synthesis and hydrolysis was conducted at a substrate concentration of 25% with an enzyme loading of 20 FPU/g cellulose, a hydrolysis yield of 85.1% was obtained, 19% higher than that the commercial cellulase could reach under the same conditions. The removal of end products was suggested to improve the adsorption of cellulase on the substrate and enhance the productivity of enzymatic hydrolysis. PMID:21300538

Multi-stage and single-stage enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose (Avicel PH-101) were conducted to investigate individual factors that affect the rate-reducing kinetics of enzymatic hydrolysis. Understanding factors affecting enzymatic hydrolysis of Avicel will help improve hydrolysis of various biomasses. Product inhibition, enzyme deactivation, and the changes of substrate are potential factors that can affect the hydrolysis efficiency of Avicel. Multi-stage enzymatic hydrolysis resulted in 36.9% and 25.4% higher carbohydrate conversion as compared to a single-stage enzymatic hydrolysis with an enzyme loading of 5 and 20 FPU/g in a 96 h reaction. However, a decline in carbohydrate conversion of 1.6% and 2.6% was observed through each stage with 5 and 20 FPU/g, respectively. This indicated that the substrate became more recalcitrant as hydrolysis progressed. The decreased reactivity was not due to crystallinity because no significant change in crystallinity was detected by X-ray diffraction. Product inhibition was significant at low enzyme loading, while it was marginal at high enzyme loading. Therefore, product inhibition can only partially explain this decreased conversion. Another important factor, enzyme deactivation, contributed to 20.3% and 25.4% decrease in the total carbohydrate conversion of 96 h hydrolysis with 5 and 20 FPU/g, respectively. This work shows that an important reason for the decreased Avicel digestibility is the effect of enzyme blockage, which refers to the enzymes that irreversibly adsorb on accessible sites of substrate. About 45.3% and 63.2% of the total decreased conversion at the end of the 8th stage with 5 and 20 FPU/g, respectively, was due to the presence of irreversibly adsorbed enzymes. This blockage of active sites by enzymes has been speculated by other researchers, but this article shows further evidence of this effect. PMID:22125215

Cellulase could not be selectively collected from fermentation broth by simple foam fractionation, because of the presence of other more surface-active compounds. A new approach of affinity foam fractionation was investigated for improvement. A hardwood hydrolysate (containing cellulose oligomers, substrates to cellulase) and two substrate analogs, i.e., carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and xylan hydrolysate, were added before the foaming process. The substrates and substrate analogs were indeed found to bind the cellulase selectively and form more hydrophobic complexes that partition more readily onto bubble surfaces. In this study, the effects of the type and concentration of substrate/analog as well as the presence of cells at different growth stages were examined. The foam fractionation properties evaluated included foaming speed, foam stability, foamate volume, and enrichment of filter paper unit (FPU) and individual cellulase components (i.e., endoglucanases, exoglucanases, and beta-glucosidases). Depending on the broth and substrate/analog employed, the foamate FPU could be more than fourfold higher than the starting broth FPU. Addition of substrate/analog also deterred the enrichment of other extracellular proteins, resulting in the desired cellulase purification in the foamate. The value of E/P (enzyme activity-FPU/g/L of proteins) in the foamate reached as high as 18, from a lactose-based fermentation broth with original E/P of 5.6. Among cellulase components, exoglucanases were enriched the most and beta-glucosidases the least. The study with CMC of different molecular weights (MW) and degrees of substitution (DS) indicated that the CMC with low DS and high MW performed better in cellulase foam fractionation. PMID:16915712

Soybean insoluble fractions recovered from aqueous extraction processing (AEP) and enzyme-assisted AEP (EAEP) of full-fat soybean flakes (FFSF) and extruded FFSF were evaluated as a feedstock for the production of fermentable sugars using enzymes. Among the four insoluble fractions (AEP FFSF, EAEP FFSF, AEP extruded FFSF and EAEP extruded FFSF), the composition analysis revealed that the one recovered from EAEP of extruded FFSF had the highest glucan content, 16% [dry basis (db)], as compared to about 10% (db) for the other fractions. Thirty-three percent of the initial glucan of the insoluble recovered from AEP and EAEP of FFSF were converted into glucose using 33 FPU of Accellerase 1000/g-glucan. This saccharification yield was increased to 44% with extruded fibers. The higher saccharification yield of 49% was obtained at 45 °C, 1% glucan loading, and 101 FPU/g-glucan enzymes loading after 27 h of hydrolysis. PMID:20797848

There is tremendous interest in using agro-industrial wastes, such as cellulignin, as starting materials for the production of fuels and chemicals. Cellulignin are the solids, which result from the acid hydrolysis of the sugarcane bagasse. The objective of this work was to optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose fraction of cellulignin, and to study its fermentation to ethanol using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Cellulose conversion was optimized using response surface methods with pH, enzyme loading, solid percentage, and temperature as factor variables. The optimum conditions that maximized the conversion of cellulose to glucose, calculated from the initial dried weight of pretreated cellulignin, (43°C, 2%, and 24.4 FPU/g of pretreated cellulignin) such as the glucose concentration (47°C, 10%, and 25.6 FPU/g of pretreated cellulignin) were found. The desirability function was used to find conditions that optimize both, conversion to glucose and glucose concentration (47°C, 10%, and 25.9 FPU/g of pretreated cellulignin). The resulting enzymatic hydrolyzate was fermented yielding a final ethanol concentration of 30.0 g/L, in only 10 h, and reaching a volumetric productivity of 3.0 g/L·h, which is close to the values obtained in the conventional ethanol fermentation of sugar cane juice (5.0-8.0 g/L·h) in Brazil.

Processes that produce only ethanol from lignocellulosics display poor economics. This is generally overcome by constructing large facilities having satisfactory economies of scale, thus making financing onerous and hindering the development of suitable technologies. Lignol Innovations has developed a biorefining technology that employs an ethanol-based organosolv step to separate lignin, hemicellulose components, and extractives from the cellulosic fraction of woody biomass. The resultant cellulosic fraction is highly susceptible to enzymatic hydrolysis, generating very high yields of glucose (>90% in 12?24h) with typical enzyme loadings of 10?20 FPU (filter paper units)/g. This glucose is readily converted to ethanol, or possibly other sugar platform chemicals, either by sequential or si...

Paper and pulp industry effluent was enzymatically hydrolysed using crude cellulase enzyme (0.8-2.2FPU/ml) obtained from Trichoderma reesei and from the hydrolysate biohydrogen was produced using Enterobacter aerogenes. The influence of temperature and incubation time on enzyme production was studied. The optimum temperature for the growth of T. reesei was found to be around 29 C. The enzyme activity of 2.5 FPU/ml was found to produce about 22 g/l of total sugars consisting mainly of glucose, xylose and arabinose. Relevant kinetic parameters with respect to sugars production were estimated using two fraction model. The enzymatic hydrolysate was used for the biohydrogen production using E. aerogenes. The growth data obtained for E. aerogenes were fitted well with Monod and Logistic equations. The maximum hydrogen yield of 2.03 mol H{sub 2}/mol sugar and specific hydrogen production rate of 225 mmol of H{sub 2}/g cell/h were obtained with an initial concentration of 22 g/l of total sugars. The colour and COD of effluent was also decreased significantly during the production of hydrogen. The results showed that the paper and pulp industry effluent can be used as a substrate for biohydrogen production. (author)

Organic municipal solid waste enriched with wheat straw was subjected to wet-oxidation as a pre-treatment for subsequent enzymatic conversion and fermentation into bio-ethanol. The effect of tempera (185-195degrees C), oxygen pressure (3-12) and sodium carbonate (0-2 g l(-1)) addition on enzymatic cellulose and hemicellulose convertibility was studied at a constant wet oxidation retention time of 10 minutes. An enzyme convertibility assay at high enzyme loading (25 filter paper unit (FPU) g(-1) dry solids (DS) added) showed that up to 78% of the cellulose and up to 68% of the hemicellulose in the treated waste could be converted into respectively hexose and pentose sugars compared to 46% for cellulose and 36% for hemicellulose in the raw waste. For all wet oxidation conditions tested, total carbohydrate recoveries were high (> 89%) and 44-66% of the original lignin could be converted into non-toxic carboxylic acids mainly (2.2-4.5 % on DS basis). Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of the treated waste at 10% DS by Saccharomyces cerevisae yielded average ethanol concentrations of 16.5 to 22 g l(-1) for enzyme loadings of 5 and 25 FPU g(-1) DS, respectively. The cellulose to ethanol conversion efficiency during SSF was 50, 62 65 and 70% for a total enzyme loading of 5, 10, 15 and 25 FPU g(-1) DS, respectively. Hence, this study shows that wet oxidation is a suitable pre-treatment for the conversion of organic waste carbohydrates into ethanol and that compatible conversion yields (60-65%) can be achieved at moderate enzyme loadings

The potential of apple pomace (a solid waste from cider and apple juice making factories) as a source of sugars and other compounds for fermentation was evaluated. The effect of the cellulase-to-solid ratio (CSR) and the liquor-to-solid ratio (LSR) on the kinetics of glucose and total monosaccharide generation was studied. Mathematical models suitable for reproducing and predicting the hydrolyzate composition were developed. When samples of apple pomace were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis, the glucose and fructose present in the raw material as free monosaccharides were extracted at the beginning of the process. Using low cellulase and cellobiase charges (8.5 FPU/g-solid and 8.5 IU/g-solid, respectively), 79% of total glucan was saccharified after 12 h, leading to solutions containing up to 43.8 g monosaccharides/L (glucose, 22.8 g/L; fructose, 14.8 g/L; xylose+mannose+galactose, 2.5 g/L; arabinose+rhamnose, 2.8g/L). These results correspond to a monosaccharide/cellulase ratio of 0.06 g/FPU and to a volumetric productivity of 3.65 g of monosaccharides/L h. Liquors obtained under these conditions were used for fermentative lactic acid production with Lactobacillus rhamnosus CECT-288, leading to media containing up to 32.5 g/L of L-lactic acid after 6 h (volumetric productivity=5.41 g/L h, product yield=0.88 g/g). PMID:17321133

Short-term lime pretreatment uses lime and high-pressure oxygen to significantly increase the digestibility of poplar wood. When the treated poplar wood was enzymatically hydrolyzed, glucan and xylan were converted to glucose and xylose, respectively. To calculate product yields from raw biomass, these sugars were expressed as equivalent glucan and xylan. To recommend pretreatment conditions, the single criterion was the maximum overall glucan and xylan yields using a cellulase loading of 15 FPU/g glucan in raw biomass. On this basis, the recommended conditions for short-term lime pretreatment of poplar wood follow: (1) 2 h, 140 degrees C, 21.7 bar absolute and (2) 2 h, 160 degrees C, and 14.8 bar absolute. In these two cases, the reactivity was nearly identical, thus the selected condition depends on the economic trade off between pressure and temperature. Considering glucose and xylose and their oligomers produced during 72 h of enzymatic hydrolysis, the overall yields attained under these recommended conditions follow: (1) 95.5 g glucan/100 g of glucan in raw biomass and 73.1 g xylan/100 g xylan in raw biomass and (2) 94.2 g glucan/100 g glucan in raw biomass and 73.2 g xylan/100 g xylan in raw biomass. The yields improved by increasing the enzyme loading. An optimal enzyme cocktail was identified as 67% cellulase, 12% beta-glucosidase, and 24% xylanase (mass of protein basis) with cellulase activity of 15 FPU/g glucan in raw biomass and total enzyme loading of 51 mg protein/g glucan in raw biomass. Ball milling the lime-treated poplar wood allowed for 100% conversion of glucan in 120 h with a cellulase loading of only 10 FPU/g glucan in raw biomass. PMID:19291802

The aim of this work was to optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose fraction of cashew apple bagasse (CAB) after diluted acid (CAB-H) and alkali pretreatment (CAB-OH), and to evaluate its fermentation to ethanol using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Glucose conversion of 82 +/- 2 mg/g CAB-H and 730 +/- 20 mg/g CAB-OH was obtained when 2% (w/v) of solid and 30 FPU/g bagasse was used during hydrolysis at 45 degrees C, 2-fold higher than when using 15 FPU/g bagasse, 44 +/- 2 mg/g CAB-H, and 450 +/- 50 mg/g CAB-OH, respectively. Ethanol concentration and productivity, achieved after 6 h of fermentation, were 20.0 +/- 0.2 g L(-1) and 3.33 g L(-1) h(-1), respectively, when using CAB-OH hydrolyzate (initial glucose concentration of 52.4 g L(-1)). For CAB-H hydrolyzate (initial glucose concentration of 17.4 g L(-1)), ethanol concentration and productivity were 8.2 +/- 0.1 g L(-1) and 2.7 g L(-1) h(-1) in 3 h, respectively. Hydrolyzates fermentation resulted in an ethanol yield of 0.38 and 0.47 g/g glucose with pretreated CAB-OH and CAB-H, respectively. Ethanol concentration and productivity, obtained using CAB-OH hydrolyzate, were close to the values obtained in the conventional ethanol fermentation of cashew apple juice or sugar cane juice. PMID:19031051

Previous studies have shown that oxidative lime pretreatment is an effective delignification method that improves the enzymatic digestibility of many biomass feedstocks. The purpose of this work is to determine the recommended oxidative lime pretreatment conditions (reaction temperature, time, pressure, and lime loading) for Alamo switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Enzymatic hydrolysis of glucan and xylan was used to determine the performance of the 52 studied pretreatment conditions. The recommended condition (110°C, 6.89 bar O(2), 240 min, 0.248 g Ca(OH)(2)/g biomass) achieved glucan and xylan overall yields (grams of sugar hydrolyzed/100 g sugar in raw biomass, 15 filter paper units (FPU)/g raw glucan) of 85.9 and 52.2, respectively. In addition, some glucan oligomers (2.6 g glucan recovered/100 g glucan in raw biomass) and significant levels of xylan oligomers (26.0 g xylan recovered/100 g xylan in raw biomass) were recovered from the pretreatment liquor. Combining a decrystallization technique (ball milling) with oxidative lime pretreatment further improved the overall glucan yield to 90.0 (7 FPU/g raw glucan). PMID:21537891

Pregnant rats were housed in 85Kr atmospheres at 10, 15, or 20 days of gestation (dg) and killed after 4 hr of exposure to 37-40 nCi/ml. The 85Kr was present in the components of the fetoplacental unit (FPU) at concentrations (nCi/g) equivalent to approximately 2% of the concentration (nCi/ml) in the exposure atmosphere. Tissue distribution of 85Kr and the distribution of radiation dose did not suggest any unusual hazard to the fetus associated with exposure of pregnant animals. This conclusion was tested using 5-day exposures to a 1000-fold increased concentration: 40 muCi/ml. The main effects observed in pregnant rats exposed to 85Kr from 7-12 or 12-17 dg (estimated radiation dose of 5 X 10(3) rad to maternal lung and 5 X 10(5) rad to maternal skin surface) were deaths, impaired weight gain and skin lesions. Secondarily, the maternal toxicity led to indications of embryotoxicity, although the incidence of malformations was not increased by the estimated 50-rad dose to the FPU. PMID:6500943

Cellulose is a major constituent of renewable lignocellulosic waste available in large quantities and is considered the most important reservoir of carbon for the production of glucose, for alternative fuel and as a chemical feedstock. Over the past decade, the emphasis has been on the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose and the efficiency of which depends on source of cellulosic substrate, its composition, structure, pretreatment process, and reactor design. In the present study, efforts were made to produce cellulase enzyme using rice straw. The produced enzyme was used for the hydrolysis of selected lignocellulosic substrate, i.e., sorghum straw. When rice straw was used as a substrate for cellulase production under solid state fermentation, the highest enzyme activity obtained was 30.7 FPU/gds, using T. reesei NCIM 992. 25 FPU/g of cellulase was added to differently treated (native, alkali treated, alkali treated followed by 3% acid treated and alkali treated followed by 3 and 5% acid treated) sorghum straw and hydrolysis was carried out at 50 °C for 60 h. 42.5% hydrolysis was obtained after 36 h of incubation. Optimization of enzyme loading, substrate concentration, temperature, time and buffer yielded a maximum of 546.00 ± 0.55 mg/g sugars (54.60 ± 0.44 g/l) with an improved hydrolysis efficiency of 70 ± 0.45%. The enzymatic hydrolyzate can be used for fermentation of ethanol by yeasts. PMID:22558539

We study stability of N-solitary wave solutions of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) lattice equation. Solitary wave solutions of the FPU lattice equation cannot be characterized as critical points of conservation laws due to the lack of infinitesimal invariance in the spatial variable. In place of standard variational arguments for Hamiltonian systems, we use an exponential stability property of the linearized FPU equation in a weighted space which is biased in the direction of motion. The dispersion of the linearized FPU equation balances the potential term for low frequencies, whereas the dispersion is superior for high frequencies.We approximate the low frequency part of a solution of the linearized FPU equation by a solution to the linearized Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation around an N-soliton solution. We prove an exponential stability property of the linearized KdV equation around N-solitons by using the linearized Bäcklund transformation and use the result to analyze the linearized FPU equation.

Several types of surfactants were adopted to construct reverse micelles, in order to investigate the characteristics of cellulose hydrolysis, we used the carboxymethyl cellulose as substrate. The electrical conductivity was measured to determine the maximum water solubilization W0( W0 = [H2O]/[SA] ) of CTAB, SDS, Tween-80 and rhamnolipid reverse micellar systems were 15.2, 20.1, 2.3 and 40.3. In this condition we studied the effects of surfactants concentrations and cellulose dosage on the enzymatic hydrolysis of reverse micelle,and compared with aqueous systems. It was shown by the results that when the cellulose dosage was 0.15 FPU/g substrate, the maximum yield of reducing sugar in reverse micelles was obtained at 1 cmc of CTAB, SDS, Tween-80 and rhamnolipid, in which the rhamnolipid yield was the highest of 198.03 mg substrate. When the concentrations of CTAB, SDS, Tween-80 and rhamnolipid were 1 cmc, the productions of reverse micelles systems were higher than that of aqueous systems of 34.36%, 21.24%, 11.44% and 34.62%. In the optimum conditions of the surfactant concentration, taking the saving cost and sugar yield into consideration, the cellulose dosage of 5 FPU substrate was the most suitable. The reducing sugar's yield of biosurfactant rhamnolipid reverse micellar system was higher than those of three chemical surfactant systems, it was shown that the adoption of biosurfactant has technologically promising prospect in constructing reverse micelles and enhancing the stability of reverse micelles. PMID:21072947

Background Lignocellulosic biomass such as wood is an attractive material for fuel ethanol production. Pretreatment technologies that increase the digestibility of cellulose and hemicellulose in the lignocellulosic biomass have a major influence on the cost of the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation processes. Pretreatments without chemicals such as acids, bases or organic solvents are less effective for an enzymatic hydrolysis process than those with chemicals, but they have a less negative effect on the environment. Results The enzymatic digestibility of eucalyptus was examined following a combined pretreatment without chemicals comprising a ball milling (BM) and hot-compressed water (HCW) treatment. The BM treatment simultaneously improved the digestibility of both glucan and xylan, and was effective in lowering the enzyme loading compared with the HCW treatment. The combination of HCW and BM treatment reduced the BM time. The eucalyptus treated with HCW (160°C, 30 minutes) followed by BM (20 minutes) had an approximately 70% yield of total sugar with a cellulase loading of 4 FPU/g substrate. This yield was comparable to the yields from samples treated with HCW (200°C, 30 minutes) or BM (40 minutes) hydrolyzed with 40 FPU/g substrate. Conclusion The HCW treatment is useful in improving the milling efficiency. The combined HCW-BM treatment can save energy and enzyme loading. PMID:12885162

The potential of using ensiling, with and without supplemental enzymes, as a cost-effective pretreatment for bioethanol production from agricultural residues was investigated. Ensiling did not significantly affect the lignin content of barley straw, cotton stalk, and triticale hay ensiled without enzyme, but slightly increased the lignin content in triticale straw, wheat straw, and triticale hay ensiled with enzyme. The holocellulose (cellulose plus hemicellulose) losses in the feedstocks, as a result of ensiling, ranged from 1.31 to 9.93%. The percent holocellulose loss in hays during ensiling was lower than in straws and stalks. Ensiling of barley, triticale, wheat straws, and cotton stalk significantly increased the conversion of holocellulose to sugars during subsequent hydrolysis with two enzyme combinations. Enzymatic hydrolysis of ensiled and untreated feedstocks by Celluclast 1.5 L-Novozyme 188 enzyme combination resulted in equal or higher saccharification than with Spezyme CP-xylanase combination. Enzyme loadings of 40 and 60 FPU/g reducing sugars gave similar sugar yields. The percent saccharification with Celluclast 1.5 L-Novozyme 188 at 40 FPU/g reducing sugars was 17.1 to 43.6%, 22.4 to 46.9%, and 23.2 to 32.2% for untreated feedstocks, feedstocks ensiled with, and without enzymes, respectively. Fermentation of the hydrolysates from ensiled feedstocks resulted in ethanol yields ranging from 0.21 to 0.28 g/g reducing sugars. PMID:18025598

computational architecture, how smart payload development techniques for ... legacy C-code SWIL algorithm (for the Hyperion instrument ..... minimize FPU pipeline stalls. Breaking up ... Without investigating additional optimization techniques, ...

Green liquor consists of sodium carbonate and sodium sulfide and is readily available in any kraft mills. The green liquor pretreatment process for bioethanol production was developed for wood chips. This process uses only proven technology and equipment currently used in a kraft pulp mill and has several additional advantages such as high sugar recovery and concentration, no inhibitive substances produced, as compared to acid-based pretreatment methods. The liquor was used to pretreat corn stover for enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis in bioethanol production. Pulp yield of 70% with 45% lignin removal was achieved under optimized conditions (8% total titratable alkali, 40% sulfidity and 140°C). About 70% of the original polysaccharides were converted into fermentable sugars, using 20 FPU/g-pulp of enzyme in the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis. The result indicates that green liquor is a feasible pretreatment to improve the enzymatic saccharification of corn stover for bioethanol production. PMID:22989657

The effect of pretreatment, enzyme loading, substrate concentration and reaction time on enzymatic hydrolysis of corn cob residues from furfural production was studied, and was compared with dilute acid pretreated corn cob. The result shows that the corn cob residues from furfural production couldn't be used directly due to higher acidity and inhibitor such as furfural etc. The enzymatic hydrolysis of the corn cob residues could be enhanced by water of Ca(OH)2 pretreatment. The best condition of corn cob residues after washed is 20 FPU/g substrate, 1:9 (substrate: buffer). The concentration and productivity of reducing sugar was 35 g/L and 30% at 48 h, and the conversion of cellulose was 61%. PMID:17990570

Low duty-cycle (LDC) algorithm is interference mitigation technique, which can reduce the average interference to the existing radio systems by lowering pulse repetition interval or pulse occupation time. In this paper, the coexistence environment between low data rate ultra wideband (UWB) communication system such as wireless sensor network and the existing wideband system using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) such as 4th generation mobile cellular system (4G), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), and field pickup unit (FPU) is considered. In order to analyze the interference mitigation capability of LDC algorithm with impulse based UWB (LDC-UWB) system, the frame error rate (FER) of wideband OFDM system is examined for two types of LDC-UWB system: th...

Green liquor consists of sodium carbonate and sodium sulfide and is readily available in any kraft mills. The green liquor pretreatment process for bioethanol production was developed for wood chips. This process uses only proven technology and equipment currently used in a kraft pulp mill and has several additional advantages such as high sugar recovery and concentration, no inhibitive substances produced, as compared to acid-based pretreatment methods. The liquor was used to pretreat corn stover for enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis in bioethanol production. Pulp yield of 70% with 45% lignin removal was achieved under optimized conditions (8% total titratable alkali, 40% sulfidity and 140degreeC). About 70% of the original polysaccharides were converted into fermentable sugars, using 20 FPU...

The use of aquatic plant cattails to produce biofuel will add value to land and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by replacing petroleum products. Dilute-sulfuric acid pretreatment of cattails was studied using a Dionex accelerated solvent extractor (ASE) varying acid concentration (0.1-1%), treatment temperature (140-180 °C), and residence time (5-10 min). The highest total glucose yield for both the pretreatment and enzyme hydrolysis stages (97.1% of the cellulose) was reached at a temperature of 180 °C, a sulfuric acid concentration of 0.5%, and a time of 5 min. Cattails pretreated with 0.5% sulfuric acid are digestible with similar results at enzyme loadings above 15 FPU/g glucan. Glucose from cattails cellulose can be efficiently fermented to ethanol with an approximately 90% of the theoretical yield. The results in this study indicate that cattails are a promising source of feedstock for advanced renewable fuel production. PMID:21807504

Economically feasible processes for industrial cellulosic ethanol production requires increasing the final ethanol titer during fermentation due to the high energy demands of the subsequent ethanol distillation. In the present study, high-yield ethanol production was achieved by short-term liquefaction and fermentation of lignocellulose biomass in a novel drum-type rotary fermentation system using a yeast strain developed for cell-surface display of fungal endoglucanase, cellobiohydrolase, and b-glucosidase. In the presence of 10FPU/g-biomass cellulase added, the recombinant cellulolytic strain produced 1.4-fold higher ethanol (89% of theoretical yield) from high-solid (200g-dry weight/L) rice straw within 72h of fermentation than wild type strain. Cell-surface engineering successfully red...

Our previous research has shown that saline Creeping Wild Ryegrass (CWR), Leymus triticoides, has a great potential to be used for bioethanol production because of its high fermentable sugar yield, up to 85% cellulose conversion of pretreated CWR. However, the high cost of enzyme is still one of the obstacles making large-scale lignocellulosic bioethanol production economically difficult. It is desirable to use reduced enzyme loading to produce fermentable sugars with high yield and low cost. To reduce the enzyme loading, the effect of addition of non-ionic surfactants and non-catalytic protein on the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated CWR was investigated in this study. Tween 20, Tween 80, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were used as additives to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis of dilute sulfuric-acid-pretreated CWR. Under the loading of 0.1 g additives/g dry solid, Tween 20 was the most effective additive, followed by Tween 80 and BSA. With the addition of Tween 20 mixed with cellulase loading of 15 FPU/g cellulose, the cellulose conversion increased 14% (from 75 to 89%), which was similar to that with cellulase loading of 30 FPU/g cellulose and without additive addition. The results of cellulase and BSA adsorption on the Avicel PH101, pretreated CWR, and lignaceous residue of pretreated CWR support the theory that the primary mechanism behind the additives is prevention of non-productive adsorption of enzymes on lignaceous material of pretreated CWR. The addition of additives could be a promising technology to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis by reducing the enzyme activity loss caused by non-productive adsorption.

To date in the US, production of renewable fuels, particularly ethanol, is primarily from food crops that are high in sugar and starch. The use of arable land for fuel rather than food production and the use of a food source for fuel rather than food have created issues in pricing and availability of traditional foods and feed. The use of cattails to produce biofuel will add value to land and also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by replacing petroleum products. In order to investigate the feasibility of converting cattails into cellulosic ethanol, a hot-water pretreatment process was studied using a Dionex accelerated solvent extractor (ASE) varying treatment temperature and time. The pretreatment at 190°C for more than 10 min could effectively dissolve the xylan fraction of cattails as soluble oligomers. Both the glucose yield and xylose yield obtained from the pretreated cattails increased with the escalation of the final pretreatment temperature, treatment time or enzyme loading. When cattails were pretreated at 190°C for 15 min, the highest glucose yield of 77.6% from the cellulose was achieved in 48 h using a cellulase loading of 60 FPU/g glucan. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ATCC 24858) was able to ferment glucose released by cattail cellulose, resulting in approximately 88.7 ± 2.8% of the theoretical ethanol yield. The higher enzyme loading of 60 FPU/g glucan will significantly increase costs. It is recommended that further studies be carried out using cattails as a feedstock for bio-fuels, especially to optimize the economics of biological conversion processes for cattails with regard to reducing enzyme usage, energy input, glucose yield and xylose yield. PMID:20803243

Moderate loadings of cellulase enzyme supplemented with beta-glucosidase were applied to solids produced by ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX), ammonia recycle (ARP), controlled pH, dilute sulfuric acid, lime, and sulfur dioxide pretreatments to better understand factors that control glucose and xylose release following 24, 48, and 72 h of hydrolysis and define promising routes to reducing enzyme demands. Glucose removal was higher from all pretreatments than from Avicel cellulose at lower enzyme loadings, but sugar release was a bit lower for solids prepared by dilute sulfuric acid in the Sunds system and by controlled pH pretreatment than from Avicel at higher protein loadings. Inhibition by cellobiose was observed to depend on the type of substrate and pretreatment and hydrolysis times, with a corresponding impact of beta-glucosidase supplementation. Furthermore, for the first time, xylobiose and higher xylooligomers were shown to inhibit enzymatic hydrolysis of pure glucan, pure xylan, and pretreated corn stover, and xylose, xylobiose, and xylotriose were shown to have progressively greater effects on hydrolysis rates. Consistent with this, addition of xylanase and beta-xylosidase improved performance significantly. For a combined mass loading of cellulase and beta-glucosidase of 16.1 mg/g original glucan (about 7.5 FPU/g), glucose release from pretreated solids ranged from 50% to75% of the theoretical maximum and was greater for all pretreatments at all protein loadings compared to pure Avicel cellulose except for solids from controlled pH pretreatment and from dilute acid pretreatment by the Sunds pilot unit. The fraction of xylose released from pretreated solids was always less than for glucose, with the upper limit being about 60% of the maximum for ARP and the Sunds dilute acid pretreatments at a very high protein mass loading of 116 mg/g glucan (about 60 FPU). PMID:18781688

For efficient utilization of both starchy and cellulosic materials, oil palm trunk was separated into parenchyma (PA) and vascular bundle (VB). High solid-state simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (HSS-SSF) using 30% (w/v) PA, containing 46.7% (w/w) starch, supplemented with amylases and Saccharomyces cerevisiae K3, produced 6.1% (w/v) ethanol. Subsequent alkali-pretreatment using sodium hydroxide was carried out with starch-free PA (sfPA) and VB. Enzymatic digestibility of 5% (w/v) pretreated sfPA and VB was 92% and 97%, respectively, using 18 FPU of commercial cellulase supplemented with 10U of Novozyme-188 per gram of substrate. Likewise, HSS-SSF using 30% (w/v) alkali-pretreated sfPA and VB, with cellulases and yeast, resulted in high ethanol production (8.2% and 8.5% (w/v),...

In order to understand the product inhibition of enzymatic lignocellulose hydrolysis, the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated rice straw was carried out over an enzyme loading range of 2 to 30 FPU/g substrate, and the inhibition of enzymatic hydrolysis was analyzed kinetically based on the reducing sugars produced. It was shown that glucose, xylose, and arabinose were the main reducing sugar components contained in the hydrolysate. The mass ratio of glucose, xylose, and arabinose to the total reducing sugars was almost constant at 52.0%, 29.7% and 18.8%, respectively, in the enzyme loading range. The reducing sugars exerted competitive inhibitory interferences to the enzymatic hydrolysis. Glucose, xylose, and arabinose had a dissociation constant of 1.24, 0.54 and 0.33 g/l, respectively. The inhibitory interferences by reducing sugars were superimposed on the enzymatic hydrolysis. The enzymatic hydrolysis could be improved by the removal of the produced reducing sugars from hydrolysate. PMID:22552805

Production of bioethanol from agricultural residues and hays (wheat, barley, and triticale straws, and barley, triticale, pearl millet, and sweet sorghum hays) through a series of chemical pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation processes was investigated in this study. Composition analysis suggested that the agricultural straws and hays studied contained approximately 28.62-38.58% glucan, 11.19-20.78% xylan, and 22.01-27.57% lignin, making them good candidates for bioethanol production. Chemical pretreatment with sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide at concentrations of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% indicated that concentration and treatment agent play a significant role during pretreatment. After 2.0% sulfuric acid pretreatment at 121 degrees C/15 psi for 60 min, 78.10-81.27% of the xylan in untreated feedstocks was solubilized, while 75.09-84.52% of the lignin was reduced after 2.0% sodium hydroxide pretreatment under similar conditions. Enzymatic hydrolysis of chemically pretreated (2.0% NaOH or H2SO4) solids with Celluclast 1.5 L-Novozym 188 (cellobiase) enzyme combination resulted in equal or higher glucan and xylan conversion than with Spezyme(R) CP- xylanase combination. The glucan and xylan conversions during hydrolysis with Celluclast 1.5 L-cellobiase at 40 FPU/g glucan were 78.09 to 100.36% and 74.03 to 84.89%, respectively. Increasing the enzyme loading from 40 to 60 FPU/g glucan did not significantly increase sugar yield. The ethanol yield after fermentation of the hydrolyzate from different feedstocks with Saccharomyces cerevisiae ranged from 0.27 to 0.34 g/g glucose or 52.00-65.82% of the theoretical maximum ethanol yield. PMID:18025588

Bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuel requires a hydrolysis step to obtain fermentable sugars, generally accomplished by fungal enzymes. Large-scale screening of different microbial strains would provide optimal enzyme cocktails for any target feedstock. The aim of this study was to screen a large collection of Trichoderma sp. strains for the hydrolytic potential towards switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.). Strains were cultivated in a small-scale system and assayed in micro-plates for xylanase and cellulase activities. The population distributions of these traits are reported after growth on switchgrass in comparison with cellulose. The distribution profiles suggest that the growth on switchgrass strongly promotes xylanase production. The IK4 strain displayed the highest xylanase activity after growth on switchgrass (133U/mL). Enzymes (10FPU/g substrate) from IK4 were compared with those from 2 cellulolytic Trichoderma strains and a commercial enzyme in saccharification time-course experiments on untreated and pretreated switchgrass and on an artificial substrate. Samples were analysed by DNS assay and by an oxygraphic method for sugar equivalent or glucose concentration. On the untreated substrate, IK4 enzymes even outperformed a 5-fold load of commercial enzyme, suggesting that xylanase or accessory enzymes are a limiting factor on this type of recalcitrant substrate. On the other substrates, IK4 preparations showed intermediate behaviour if compared with the commercial enzyme at 10FPU/g substrate and at 5-fold load. IK4 also nearly halved the time to release 50% of the hydrolysable sugar equivalents (T(50%)), with respect to the other preparations at the same enzymatic load. DNS assay and oxygraphic method gave highly correlated results for the 3 saccharified substrates. The study suggests that accessory enzymes like xylanase play a key role in improving the performance of cellulase preparations on herbaceous lignocellulosic feedstocks like switchgrass. PMID:22500897

2011 ranking in production and research productivity in Spanish public universities. The assessment and improvement of the quality of scientific research in the universities is one of the main goals of the European Space for Higher Education. Within this goal, increased interest in national and international rankings has been shown. The objective of this research is to update the scientific research productivity ranking of Spanish public universities and it is based on data corresponding to 2011. The methodology of this research is similar to those of past research, including not only the assessment of productivity, but the total production of each university. Seven indicators were assessed: articles in JCR-indexed journals, scientific research periods, I+D projects, doctoral dissertations, FPU scholarships, doctoral programs towards Excellence Mention, and patents. Results show a notable difference between universities with a higher production (University of Barcelona, Complutense University of Madrid, and University of Granada) and those that are the most productive (Pompeu Fabra, Pablo de Olavide, and Rovira i Virgili). The results obtained are analyzed in the discussion with special focus on the evolution of research in Spanish public universities in the past four years. Some challenges for the future are also discussed. PMID:23079344

back-end spectrometer front-end. Antenna. Local Oscillator reference signal diplexer. LOU. FPU ... co-planar waveguide. 1703 – 1910. GHz lens and twin slot planar antenna. Al co-planar ..... Required mass of water ice ~ ten Earth masses, ...

designed for concurrency fl'om the start rather than modified from existing .... tially reduced instruction set computers. (RISC) except for certain instructions that ... family. The TS00 has an on-chip. 64-bit IEEE floating-point processor. (FPU). [23].

The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) pioneering numerical experiment played a major role in the history of computer simulation because it introduced this concept for the first time. Moreover, it raised a puzzling question which was answered more than 10 years later. After an introduction to this problem, we briefly review its history and then suggest some simple numerical experiments, with a provided Matlab code, to study various aspects of the ``FPU'' problem.

The necessity of increasing the methane productivity of manure based biogas plants has triggered the development of new separation technologies for being applied before anaerobic digestion of the manure. Thus, manure solid and liquid fractions could be used to centralized biogas plants for methane production and as fertilizer on the farm, respectively. One of the challenges of this approach is that the solid fraction of manure contains lignocellulosic fibers, which are difficult to digest and thus make anaerobic digestion process slow and economically unfavourable. In the present study, aqueous ammonia soaking (AAS) was investigated as a pretreatment method to disrupt lignocellulosic structure and increase methane potential of swine manure fibers. It was proven that AAS broke down the lignocellulosic structure dissolving approximately the 35% of lignin and maintaining cellulose and hemicelluloses almost intact. Subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis with 15 FPU per g of TS for four days released almost 94% of glucose and 91% of xylose found in manure fibers. AAS pretreatment exhibited a significant effect on methane production rate and potential. It was found that AAS for 3 days at room temperature were the optimal conditions among the ones tested, resulting at a 78% increase in methane yield from manure fibers. AAS at 55°C did not exhibit any extra benefit for methane production compared to room temperature.

Abstract in english In Brazil, the production of ethanol from sugarcane produces large amounts of lignocellulosic residues (bagasse and straw), which have been driving research and development for the production of second generation ethanol. In the present work, a recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain expressing the ?-glucosidase gene from Humicola grisea was used for ethanol production from three different cellulosic sources by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Init (more) ially, a enzymatic pre-hydrolysis step was done with a solid:liquid ratio of 1:4, and an enzymatic load of 25 filter paper activity (FPU).g-1 of cellulosic substrate. Using sugarcane bagasse pretreated cellulignin, crystalline cellulose and carboxymethyl cellulose, 51.7 g L-1, 41.7 g L-1 and 13.8 g L-1 of ethanol was obtained, respectively, at the end of 55 hrs of fermentation. The highest ethanol productivity (0.94 g L-1 hrs-1) was achieved using sugarcane bagasse pretreated cellulignin. The use of a recombinant S. cerevisiae led to extremely low glucose concentrations when compared to other works reported in literature.

Switchgrass was used as a model feedstock to determine the influence of pretreatment conditions and biomass quality on enzymatic hydrolysis using different enzyme products. Dilute sulfuric acid and soaking in aqueous ammonia pretreatments were used to produce biomass with varied levels of hemicellulose and lignin sheathing. Pretreated switchgrass solids were tested with simple enzymatic hydrolysis and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) with three commercial enzyme products: Accellerase 1000 (Genencor), Spezyme CP (Genencor)/Novozyme 188 (Novozymes), and Celluclast/Novozyme 188 (Novozymes). Enzymes were loaded on a common activity basis (FPU/g cellulose and CBU/g cellulose). Despite identical enzyme loadings, glucose yields were significantly different for both acid and alkaline pretreatments but differences diminished as hydrolysis progressed for acid-pretreated biomass. Cellobiose concentrations in Accellerase treatments indicated an initial beta-glucosidase limitation that became less significant over time. SSF experiments showed that differences in glucose and ethanol yields could not be attributed to enzyme product inhibition. Yield discrepancies of glucose or ethanol in acid pretreatment, alkaline pretreatment, and acid pretreatment/SSF were as much as 15%, 19%, and 5%. These results indicate that standardized protocols for measuring enzyme activity may not be adequate for assessing activity using pretreated biomass substrates. PMID:20407843

The SAFARI instrument is a far infrared imaging spectrometer that is a core instrument of the SPICA mission. Thanks to the large (3 meter) SPICA cold telescope, the ultra sensitive detectors and a powerful Fourier Transform Spectrometer, this instrument will give access to the faintest light never observed in the 34 ?m - 210 ?m bandwidth with a high spectral resolution. To achieve this goal, TES detectors, that need to be cooled at a temperature as low as 50 mK, have been chosen. The thermal architecture of the SAFARI focal plane unit (FPU) which fulfils the TES detector thermal requirements is presented. In particular, an original 50 mK cooler concept based on a sorption cooler in series with an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator will be used. The thermal design of the detector focal plane array (FPA) that uses three temperature stages to limit the loads on the lowest temperature stage, will be also described. The current SAFARI thermal budget estimations are presented and discussed regarding the limited SPICA allocations. Finally, preliminary thermal sensitivity analysis dealing with thermal stability requirements is presented.

In this study, we investigated the use of horticultural waste (HW) collected in Singapore as a renewable raw material for bioethanol production. A modified organosolv method using ethanol cooking under mild conditions followed by H(2)O(2) post-treatment was investigated for HW pretreatment. It was found that the addition of acid catalysts in the pretreatment process was not critical and post-treatment using H(2)O(2) was essential for the enhancement of HW digestibility. Enzymatic hydrolysis of the organosolv pretreated HW with 17.5% solid content, enzyme loading of 20 FPU/g HW of filter paper cellulase, and 80 CBU/g HW of ?-glucosidase resulted in a HW hydrolysate containing 26.9 g/L reducing sugar after 72 h. Fermentation of the above hydrolysate medium produced 11.69 g/L ethanol at 8h using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It proved that horticultural waste was a potential feedstock for fuel ethanol production and organosolv pretreatment method developed in this study was effective. PMID:22101074

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Downregulated lignin transgenic black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) was used to elucidate the effect of lignin and xylan content on enzymatic saccharification. The lignin contents of three transgenic samples (4CL1-1, 4CL1-4, and CH8-1-4) were 19.3, 16.7, and 15.0 %, respectively, as compared with the wild type (21.3 %). The four pretreatments were dilute acid (0.1 % sulfuric acid, 185 °C, 30 min), green liquor (6 % total titratable alkali, 25 % sulfidity based on TTA, 185 °C, and 15 min.), autohydrolysis (185 °C, 30 min), and ozone delignification (25 °C, 30 min). Following the pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification was carried out using an enzyme charge of 5 FPU/g of substrates. The removal of lignin and hemicellulose varies with both the types of pretreatments and the lignin content of the transgenic trees. Due to the greatest removal of lignin, green liquor induced the highest sugar production and saccharification efficiency, followed by acid, ozone, and autohydrolysis in descending order. The results indicated that lignin is the main recalcitrance of biomass degradation. At a given lignin content, pretreatment with ozone delignification had lower saccharification efficiency than the other pretreatment methods due to higher xylan content. PMID:22903324

Extrusion processing has shown potential to be used as a pretreatment method for second-generation bioethanol production. Furthermore, surfactants have been shown to reduce enzyme deactivation and increase the efficiency of hydrolysis. Therefore, a sequential pretreatment technique was developed for corn stover (CS) and prairie cordgrass (PCG) in which a single screw extruder was used for the first pretreatment according to a previously optimized condition using 70-180 °C for feed, barrel, and die zones with 65-155 rpm screw speed. The second pretreatment was optimized in this study at 45-55 °C, 1-4 h, 0.15-0.6 g Tween 20/g glucan according to response surface methodology. Optimization of surfactant pretreatment facilitated the estimation of interaction and higher-order effects for major factors involved in surfactant treatment (temperature, time, surfactant loading). Using 8.6 FPU/g glucan cellulase, the optimum conditions found by fitting appropriate quadratic models to the data increased glucose and xylose yield by 27.5 and 33% for CS and by 21.5 and 27% for PCG, respectively. Tween 20 concentrations and pretreatment temperature were the most significant factors affecting sugar yield (p value <0.05). Studies of SDS concentration at and beyond critical micelle concentration (5.2-100 mM) demonstrated a decrease in sugar yield compared to control. PMID:22552806

In order to utilize and control the invasive weed, crofton weed (Eupatorium adenophorum Spreng), a potential pathway was proposed by using it as a feedstock for production of fermentable sugars. Three chemical pretreatment methods were used for improving enzymatic saccharification of the weed stem. Mild H2SO4 pretreatment could obtain a relatively high yield of sugars in the pretreatment (32.89%, based on initial holocellulose), however, it led to only a slight enhancement of enzymatic digestibility. NaOH pretreatment could obtain a higher enzymatic conversion ratio of cellulose compared with H2SO4 pretreatment. Peracetic acid (PAA) pretreatment seemed to be the most effective for improving enzymatic saccharification of the weed stem in the three chemical pretreatment methods under the same conditions. The conversion ratio of cellulose in the sample pretreated by PAA under the "optimal" condition was increased to 50% by cellulase loading of 80 FPU/g cellulose for 72 h incubation. A number of empirical quadratic models were successfully developed according to the experimental data to predict the yield of sugar and degree of delignification. PMID:17709243

In order to produce lactic acid, from agricultural residues such as soybean straw, which is a raw material for biodegradable plastic production, it is necessary to decompose the soybean straw into soluble sugars. Enzymatic hydrolysis is one of the methods in common use, while pretreatment is the effective way to increase the hydrolysis rate. The optimal conditions of pretreatment using ammonia and enzymatic hydrolysis of soybean straw were determined. Compared with the untreated straw, cellulose in straw pretreated by ammonia liquor (10%) soaking for 24 h at room temperature increased 70.27%, whereas hemicellulose and lignin in pretreated straw decreased to 41.45% and 30.16%, respectively. The results of infrared spectra (IR), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis also showed that the structure and the surface of the straw were changed through pretreatment that is in favor of the following enzymatic hydrolysis. maximum enzymatic hydrolysis rate of 51.22% was achieved at a substrate concentration of 5% (w/v) at 50 C and pH 4.8 using cellulase (50 fpu/g of substrate) for 36 h. (author)

Oxidative lime pretreatment increases the enzymatic digestibility of lignocellulosic biomass primarily by removing lignin. In this study, recommended pretreatment conditions (reaction temperature, oxygen pressure, lime loading, and time) were determined for Dacotah switchgrass. Glucan and xylan overall hydrolysis yields (72 h, 15 FPU/g raw glucan) were measured for 105 different reaction conditions involving three different reactor configurations (very short term, short term, and long term). The short-term reactor was the most productive. At the recommended pretreatment condition (120 °C, 6.89 bar O(2), 240 min), it achieved an overall glucan hydrolysis yield of 85.2 g glucan hydrolyzed/100 g raw glucan and an overall xylan yield of 50.1 g xylan hydrolyzed/100 g raw xylan. At this condition, glucan oligomers (1.80 g glucan recovered/100 g glucan in raw biomass) and xylan oligomers (25.20 g xylan recovered/100 g xylan in raw biomass) were recovered from the pretreatment liquor, which compensate for low pretreatment yields. PMID:21494754

I describe the performance of the CRBLASTER computational framework on a 350-MHz 49-core Maestro Development Board (MBD). The 49-core Interim Test Chip (ITC) was developed by the U.S. Government and is based on the intellectual property of the 64-core TILE64 processor of the Tilera Corporation. The Maestro processor is intended for use in the high radiation environments found in space; the ITC was fabricated using IBM 90-nm CMOS 9SF technology and Radiation-Hardening-by-Design (RHDB) rules. CRBLASTER is a parallel-processing cosmic-ray rejection application based on a simple computational framework that uses the high-performance computing industry standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) library. CRBLASTER was designed to be used by research scientists to easily port image-analysis programs based on embarrassingly-parallel algorithms to a parallel-processing environment such as a multi-node Beowulf cluster or multi-core processors using MPI. I describe my experience of porting CRBLASTER to the 64-core TILE64 processor, the Maestro simulator, and finally the 49-core Maestro processor itself. Performance comparisons using the ITC are presented between emulating all floating-point operations in software and doing all floating point operations with hardware assist from an IEEE-754 compliant Aurora FPU (floating point unit) that is attached to each of the 49 cores. Benchmarking of the CRBLASTER computational framework using the memory-intensive L.A.COSMIC cosmic ray rejection algorithm and a computational-intensive Poisson noise generator reveal subtleties of the Maestro hardware design. Lastly, I describe the importance of using real scientific applications during the testing phase of next-generation computer hardware; complex real-world scientific applications can stress hardware in novel ways that may not necessarily be revealed while executing simple applications or unit tests.

Summary In Bacillus anthracis the siderophore petrobactin is vital for iron acquisition and virulence. The petrobactin-binding receptor FpuA is required for these processes. Here additional components of petrobactin reacquisition are described. To identify these proteins, mutants of candidate permease and ATPase genes were generated allowing for characterization of multiple petrobactin ATP-binding cassette (ABC)-import systems. Either of two distinct permeases, FpuB or FatCD, is required for iron acquisition and play redundant roles in petrobactin transport. A mutant strain lacking both permeases, fpuBfatCD, was incapable of using petrobactin as an iron source and exhibited attenuated virulence in a murine model of inhalational anthrax infection. ATPase mutants were generated in either of ...

In this work, different regimes of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) recurrence are simulated numerically for fully nonlinear "one-dimensional" potential water waves in a finite-depth flume between two vertical walls. In such systems, the FPU recurrence is closely related to the dynamics of coherent structures approximately corresponding to solitons of the integrable Boussinesq system. A simplest periodic solution of the Boussinesq model, describing a single soliton between the walls, is presented in an analytical form in terms of the elliptic Jacobi functions. In the numerical experiments, it is observed that depending on a number of solitons in the flume and their parameters, the FPU recurrence can occur in a simple or complicated manner, or be practically absent. For comparison, the nonlinear dynamics of potential water waves over nonuniform beds is simulated, with initial states taken in the form of several pairs of colliding solitons. With a mild-slope bed profile, a typical phenomenon in the course of evolutio...

A brief review of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) paradox is given, together with its suggested resolutions and its relation to other physical problems. We focus on the ideas and concepts that have become the core of modern nonlinear mechanics, in their historical perspective. Starting from first numerical results of FPU, both theoretical and numerical findings are discussed in close connection with the problems of ergodicity, integrability, chaos and stability of motion. New directions related to the Bose-Einstein condensation and quantum systems of interacting Bose-particles are also considered.

Bushes of normal modes represent the exact excitations in nonlinear physical systems with discrete symmetries [Physica D117 (1998) 43]. The present paper is the continuation of our previous paper [Physica D166 (2002) 208], where these dynamical objects of a new type were discussed for the monoatomic nonlinear chains. Here, we develop a simple crystallographic method for finding bushes in nonlinear chains and investigate stability of one-dimensional and two-dimensional vibrational bushes for both FPU-alpha and FPU-beta models, in particular, of those revealed recently in [Physica D175 (2003) 31].

...within the United States, and that all production was moved to Orangeburg, South Carolina. Further, the firm addressed the above...within the United States, and that all production was moved to Orangeburg, South Carolina. Conclusion After reconsideration, I...

...Hewlett Packard, Global Parts Supply Chain, Global Product Life Cycles Management Unit, Including Teleworkers Reporting...Hewlett Packard, Global Parts Supply Chain, Global Product Life Cycles Management Unit, including teleworkers...

A nuclear fuel conversion system comprises a unit for heating and denitrifying a nitric acid solution of uranyl nitrate, plutonium nitrate, or mixture thereof, a unit for grinding denitrified products, a unit connected to the grinding unit through a first conveying unit for roasting and reducing ground products, a unit connected to the roast-reduction unit through a second conveying unit for further grinding and then sieving the roasted and reduced products, and a unit for disposing of waste gases and waste liquor. The denitrification unit includes a microwave generator for heating and denitrifying the nitric acid solution and for cooling the denitrified product, and the first and second conveying units comprise pneumatic carrier means each of which consists of a suction nozzle, cyclone connected to the nozzle through a pipe, and a blower for creating a reduced pressure condition in the pipe.

...Caucasus/Central and South Asian (SC/CASA) state end product, and United States...qualifying country end products, SC/CASA state end products, or Free Trade Agreement...except Australian or Canadian) or SC/CASA state end products: (Line Item...

We introduce two novel methods for studying periodic solutions of the FPU beta-model, both numerically and rigorously. One is a variational approach, based on the dual formulation of the problem, and the other involves computer-assisted proofs. These methods are used e.g. to construct a new type of solutions, whose energy is spread among several modes, associated with closely spaced resonances.

Abstract in spanish El presente trabajo tuvo como objetivo la evaluación de la hidrólisis enzimática de residuos de la cosecha de la caña de azúcar (hojas y cogollos) a partir de la preparación de cuatro sustratos con diferentes pretratamientos, entre los que se encuentran: delignificación organosolvente, delignificación enzimática, delignificación con hidróxido de sodio y clorito de sodio y un sustrato base obtenido directamente de la cosecha. Además, se elaboraron cinco enzimas (more) a partir de mezclas de actividades de enzimas comerciales, que fueron evaluadas en los diferentes sustratos. Se introduce un criterio para evaluar la eficiencia de las enzimas a partir de curvas de progreso, porcentaje de sacarificación e índice de sacarificación, a este índice se le denomino "índice global de hidrólisis". Los resultados muestran, que para la hidrólisis con el preparado enzimático E5, que contiene las siguientes actividades enzimáticas: hemicelulusas de 52.75 unidades globales/ml, celulasas total de 27.53 FPU/ml, endoglucanasas de 1782,1 CMC/ml, exoglucanasa de 0.377 UI/ml, betaglucosidasa de 550 pNPG U/ml, xilanasa de 28.23 UI/ml, galactosidasa de 7.1 UI/ml, manasa de 2.76 UI/ml y ranmanasa de 14.63 UI/ml y el sustrato S3, con un contenido de celulosa de 80.53%, hemicelulosa de 13.35, lignina 1.36 y un número de Kappa de 5.85 presenta el mayor índice global de Nhidrólisis que corresponde a un valor de 117.16. El estudio permite concluir que el preparado enzimático E5 presenta un gran potencial para la hidrólisis de los residuos de la caña de azúcar tratados en este proyecto Abstract in english The enzymatic hydrolysis of waste (leaves and top cane) from the harvest of sugar cane was evaluated. The substrates were prepared by applying different delignification treatments using enzymes, organic solvents, sodium hydroxide, and sodium chlorite. Wastes with no treatment were used as control. Five mixtures of enzymes were prepared by using the enzymatic activities of the commercial enzymes, and were evaluated in the different substrates. A criterion for evaluating th (more) e efficiency of enzymes from progress curves, percentage saccharification and saccharification index, called "global index of hydrolysis" was introduced. The results shows that the hydrolysis with E5 enzymatic preparation with the following enzyme activities, hemicelullases: 52.75 global units of /ml, total cellulase: 27.53 FPU / ml, endoglucanase: 1782.1 CMC / ml, exoglucanase: 0.377 UI / ml, ?-glucosidase: 550 pUPG U / ml, xylanase: 28.23 UI / ml, galactosidasa: 7.1 UI / ml, manase: 2.76 UI / ml, and ranmanasa: 14.63 UI / ml, and the S3 substrate with 80.53% of cellulose content, 13.35% of hemicellulose, 1,36 % of lignin, and Kappa Number of 5.85 has the highest overall index of hydrolysis,117.16. The study concludes that this enzyme preparation, E5, has greatest potential for the hydrolysis the harvest waste of sugarcane used in this study.

This thesis deals with pretreatment of the raw material, enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose fraction and fermentation of the sugars obtained in the bioconversion of lignocellulosics to fuel ethanol. The success of such a process is dependent on high conversion yields in all process steps, together with efficient use of the enzymes. The steam-pretreatment methods was found to be highly efficient in making lignocellulosic materials accessible to cellulolytic enzymes. Impregnation with sulphur dioxide prior to steam pretreatment at 200 degrees C was found to be the most efficient pretreatment method for willow, with which it was possible to reach 95% of the theoretical glucose yield, after subsequent hydrolysis, and a xylose yield of 62%. A temperature of 40-45 degrees C and an enzyme concentration of about 20 FPU/g cellulose were found to be optimal for the hydrolysis of steam-pretreated willow. Delignification with alkali and peroxide increased the accessibility of the material and increased the maximum glucose concentration obtained in the enzymatic hydrolysis from 62 g/l to 83 g/l. However, the treatment reduced the overall yield of glucose, partly due to end-product inhibition in the hydrolysis. A continuous desorption/re-adsorption procedure was developed to recover spent cellulases after hydrolysis, with which it was possible to recover 18% of the original cellulases from the hydrolysate and 40% from the solid hydrolysis residue. The conditions for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation using either S. cerevisiae or Z. mobilis were optimised and the results show that 88% of the theoretical ethanol yield could be reached in 72 hours, compared with 120 hours when the hydrolysis and fermentation were performed separately. The nutrient addition could be substantially reduced compared with literature data. 85 refs, 12 figs, 6 tabs

Background While advantages of biofuel have been widely reported, studies also highlight the challenges in large scale production of biofuel. Cost of ethanol and process energy use in cellulosic ethanol plants are dependent on technologies used for conversion of feedstock. Process modeling can aid in identifying techno-economic bottlenecks in a production process. A comprehensive techno-economic analysis was performed for conversion of cellulosic feedstock to ethanol using some of the common pretreatment technologies: dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion. Detailed process models incorporating feedstock handling, pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation, ethanol recovery and downstream processing were developed using SuperPro Designer. Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb) was used as a model feedstock. Results Projected ethanol yields were 252.62, 255.80, 255.27 and 230.23 L/dry metric ton biomass for conversion process using dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion pretreatment technologies respectively. Price of feedstock and cellulose enzymes were assumed as $50/metric ton and 0.517/kg broth (10% protein in broth, 600 FPU/g protein) respectively. Capital cost of ethanol plants processing 250,000 metric tons of feedstock/year was $1.92, $1.73, $1.72 and $1.70/L ethanol for process using dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion pretreatment respectively. Ethanol production cost of $0.83, $0.88, $0.81 and $0.85/L ethanol was estimated for production process using dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion pretreatment respectively. Water use in the production process using dilute acid, dilute alkali, hot water and steam explosion pretreatment was estimated 5.96, 6.07, 5.84 and 4.36 kg/L ethanol respectively. Conclusions Ethanol price and energy use were highly dependent on process conditions used in the ethanol production plant. Potential for significant ethanol cost reductions exist in increasing pentose fermentation efficiency and reducing biomass and enzyme costs. The results demonstrated the importance of addressing the tradeoffs in capital costs, pretreatment and downstream processing technologies. PMID:9291955

...facility. Corrosive product means âcorrosive...water. Flammable product means âflammable...outside diameter that transports petroleum from a...petroleum, petroleum products, or anhydrous ammonia...units, metering and delivery stations and fabricated...to environmental damage from a...

This publication provides information on the supply and disposition of petroleum products in the United states and major geographic regions. The data series describe production, imports, exports, PAD district movements, and inventories by major suppliers of petroleum products.

...731-TA-1070B (Review)] Certain Tissue Paper Products From China AGENCY: United...antidumping duty order on certain tissue paper products from China...antidumping duty order on certain tissue paper products from China would be...

...productivity, prices and gross domestic product...separate forms for alpha multi- unit companies. The new alpha forms exclude Question...to the accurate measurement of total economic...developing productivity measurements. The...

... Basics Metrics Watch: FDA Basics Videos - FDA Basics Video: Ensuring That Cosmetics Used in the United States ... How FDA Evaluates Regulated Products: Cosmetics FDA Basics Video: Ensuring That Cosmetics Used in the United States ...

A review of waste generation and pretreatment processes was compiled, expanded, and interpreted for the swine production industry. Typical swine units based upon waste management techniques were detailed as concrete slab facilities, slotted floorpit units, and swine drylot or pas...

...regulations under the Natural Gas Act (NGA) as amended...040-horsepower (HP) compressor units at Natural's Compressor Station...to replace the two compressor units with new ones...Products and Services, Natural Gas Pipeline Company...

We prove two lemmas and one theorem that allow integrating the product of an arbitrary number of unit vectors and the Legendre polynomials over a sphere of arbitrary radius. Such integral tensor products appear in solving inhomogeneous Helmholtz equations whose right-hand side is proportional to the product of a nonfixed number of unit vectors.

This document contains teacher's materials for an 8-unit course in greenhouse management for 11th and 12th graders. The units are as follows: Producing Annual Bedding Plants; Foliage Plants; General Greenhouse Management; Poinsettia Production; Vegetable Bedding Plant Production: Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants; Production of Potted Chrysanthemums; Flowering Pot Plants; and Foliage-Type Hanging Baskets. Materials in each unit include an introduction, list of competencies, general and specific performance objectives, suggested interest approaches, a unit outline, recommendations for evaluation and testing, a list of required equipment and supplies, supplementary materials, and a resource section. Appendices follow the units for which they are appropriate and provide charts and other supplementary information. (CML)

Objetivo Comparar la funcion pulmonar unilateral (FPU) estimada mediante tomografia por impedancia electrica (TIE) con la misma determinacion obtenida a partir de la gammagrafia de ventilacion y perfusion pulmonar Pacientes y metodos Se trata de un estudio clinico prospectivo, realizado en un laboratorio de funcion pulmonar de un hospital general. Se incluyo a 20 pacientes diagnosticados de cancer de pulmon (17 varones y 3 mujeres, con edades comprendidas entre los 25 y los 77 anos), candidatos a cirugia resectiva pulmonar, a quienes se realizo un estudio de ventilacion/perfusion pulmonar con radioisotopos. La FPU se calculo a partir de imagenes en 2 espacios intercostales en las que se representaban la ventilacion y la perfusion relacionadas con los cambios en la bioimpedancia electrica. ...

A fungal strain, marked as ECU0913, producing high activities of both cellulase and xylanase was newly isolated from soil sample collected near decaying straw and identified as Penicillium sp. based on internal transcribed spacer sequence homology. The cultivation of this fungus produced both cellulase (2.40 FPU/ml) and xylanase (241 IU/ml) on a stepwisely optimized medium at 30 °C for 144 h. The cellulase and xylanase from Penicillium sp. ECU0913 was stable at an ambient temperature with half-lives of 28 and 12 days, respectively. Addition of 3 M sorbitol greatly improved the thermostability of the two enzymes, with half-lives increased by 2.3 and 188-folds, respectively. Catalytic performance of the Penicillium cellulase and xylanase was evaluated by the hydrolysis of corn stover pretreated by steam explosion. With an enzyme dosage of 50 FPU/g dry substrate, the conversions of cellulose and hemicellulose reached 77.2% and 47.5%, respectively, without adding any accessory enzyme. PMID:21298357

A novel fluorinated polyurethane (FPU) was prepared by fluorinated polyether glycol (PTMG-g-HFP) as a soft segment, 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) or toluene diisocyanate (TDI) as a hard segment and 1,4-butanodiol (BDO) as a chain extender. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H NMR, 13C NMR and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) were used to characterize the structure of the fluorinated polyurethane. The thermal stabilities of the fluorinated polyurethane and the corresponding hydrogenated polyurethane were studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis at two different sampling depths for the fluorinated polyurethane was used to investigate the surface compositions of FPU. And the mechanical properties of the fluorinated po...

...Facilities operating Combustion Sources. boilers...incinerators, turbines, and internal combustion engines: 211 Extractors...manufacturing facilities. Hydrogen Production...they have stationary combustion units on site that...

BlueGene/L is the next large supercomputer for the DOE ASC program. BlueGene/L will consist of 65,000 dual processor IBM PowerPC 440 processors, each with attached FPU. Several interconnect networks consisting of a full 3D torus, combining tree, barrier tree, and interrupt tree are used to maximize computing efficiency. The theoretical peak performance of the system is 360 Teraflops/s.

There exists a recent mathematical proof on the existence of small amplitude breathers in FPU systems near the phonon band, which includes a prediction of their amplitude and width. In this work we obtain numerically these breathers, and calculate the range of validity of the predictions, which extends relatively far from the phonon band. There exist also large amplitude breathers with the same frequency, with the consequence that there is an energy gap for breather creation in these systems.

The problem of the diverging thermal conductivity in one-dimensional (1-D) lattices is considered. By numerical simulations, it is confirmed that the thermal conductivity of the diatomic Toda lattice diverges, which is opposite to what one has believed before. Also the diverging exponent is found to be almost the same as the FPU chain. It is reconfirmed that the diverging thermal conductivity is universal in 1-D systems where the total momentum preserves.

We study interface thermal resistance (ITR) in a system consisting of two dissimilar anharmonic lattices exemplified by Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) model and Frenkel-Kontorova (FK) model. It is found that the ITR is asymmetric, namely, it depends on how the temperature gradient is applied. The dependence of the ITR on the coupling constant, temperature, temperature difference, and system size are studied. Possible applications in nanoscale heat management and control are discussed.

The present paper extends prior researches on data envelopment (DEA)-based production planning in a centralized decision-making environment. In such an environment, the production planning problem involves the participation of all individual units, each contributing in part to the total production. The production planning problem involves determining the number of products to be produced by all individual units in the next season when demand changes can be forecasted. The current study is concerned with optimal production planning in a centralized decision-making environment. The approach proposed in this paper takes the size of operational units into consideration and the production level for each unit becomes proportional to the ability of the units. The applicability of the proposed app...

mAgic-FPU is the architecture of a family of VLIW cores for configurable system level integration of floating and fixed point computing power. mAgic customization permits the designer to tune basic parameters, such as the computing power/memory access ratio of the core processor, the number of available arithmetic operation per cycle, the register file size and number of port, as well as of the number of arithmetic operators. The reconfiguration (e.g., of register file size and number of port, as well as of the number of arithmetic operators) is supported by the software environment MADE (Modular VLIW processor Architecture and Assembler Description Environment). MADE reads an architecture description file and produces a customized assembler-scheduler for the target VLIW architecture, configuring a general purpose VLIW optimizer-scheduler engine. The mAgic-FPU core architecture satisfies the requisite of portability among silicon foundries. The first members of the mAgic FPU core family architecture fit the requirements of `Smart Antenna for Adaptive Beam-Forming processing' and `Physical Sound Synthesis'. The first 1 GigaFlops mAgic core will run at 100 MHz within an area of 40 mm2 in 0.25 /?m ATMEL CMOS technology in first half 2002.

Cellulase and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were added to Avicel cellulose and solids containing 56% cellulose and 28% lignin from dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment of corn stover. Little BSA was adsorbed on Avicel cellulose, while pretreated corn stover solids adsorbed considerable amounts of this protein. On the other hand, cellulase was highly adsorbed on both substrates. Adding a 1% concentration of BSA to dilute acid pretreated corn stover prior to enzyme addition at 15 FPU/g cellulose enhanced filter paper activity in solution by about a factor of 2 and beta-glucosidase activity in solution by about a factor of 14. Overall, these results suggested that BSA treatment reduced adsorption of cellulase and particularly beta-glucosidase on lignin. Of particular note, BSA treatment of pretreated corn stover solids prior to enzymatic hydrolysis increased 72 h glucose yields from about 82% to about 92% at a cellulase loading of 15 FPU/g cellulose or achieved about the same yield at a loading of 7.5 FPU/g cellulose. Similar improvements were also observed for enzymatic hydrolysis of ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX) pretreated corn stover and Douglas fir treated by SO(2) steam explosion and for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of BSA pretreated corn stover. In addition, BSA treatment prior to hydrolysis reduced the need for beta-glucosidase supplementation of SSF. The results are consistent with non-specific competitive, irreversible adsorption of BSA on lignin and identify promising strategies to reduce enzyme requirements for cellulose hydrolysis. PMID:16673419

Positronium emission from single crystalline Al2O3 , MgO and vitreous a-SiO2 surfaces was studied as a function of the positron implantation energy E by means of Doppler broadening spectroscopy and Compton-to-peak ratio analysis. When the Ge-detector is in-line with the positron beam, the emission of para-positronium yields a red-shifted fly-away peak with intensity IpPse . An analysis of IpPse versus E for Al2O3 and MgO where no Ps is formed in the bulk (fPs=0) results in positron diffusion lengths L+(Al2O3)=(18±1)nm and L+(MgO)=(14±1)nm , and efficiencies for the emission of Ps by picking up of a surface electron of fpu(Al2O3)=(0.28±0.2) and fpu(MgO)=(0.24±0.2) . For a-SiO2 the bulk Ps fraction is fPs(a-SiO2)=(0.72±0.01) , fpu(a-SiO2)=(0.12±0.01) and the diffusion lengths of positrons, para-positronium and ortho-positronium are L+(SiO2)=(8±2)nm , LpPs(SiO2)=(14.5±2)nm and LoPs(SiO2)=(11±2)=nm . Depending on the specimen-detector geometry the emission of Ps at low implantation energy may cause either an increase or a decrease of the width of the annihilation line shape at low implantation energies.

Superamphiphobic nanofibrous membranes exhibiting robust water/oil proof and breathable performances were prepared by the combination of a novel synthesized fluorinated polyurethane (FPU) containing a terminal perfluoroalkane segment and incorporated SiO(2) nanoparticles (SiO(2) NPs). By employing the FPU/SiO(2) NPs incorporation, the hybrid membranes possess superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 165° and superoleophobicity with an oil contact angle of 151°. Surface morphological studies have indicated that the wettability of resultant membranes could be manipulated by tuning the surface composition as well as the hierarchical structures. The quantitative hierarchical roughness analysis using N(2) adsorption method has confirmed a major contribution of SiO(2) NPs on enhancing the porous structure, and a detailed correlation between the fractal dimension and amphiphobicity is proposed. Furthermore, a designed concept test shows that the as-prepared membranes could load 1.5 kg water or oil at the same time maintained an extremely high air permeability of 2 L min(-1), suggesting their use as promising materials for a variety of potential applications in protective clothing, bioseparation, water purification, tissue engineering, microfluidic systems, etc., and also provided new insight into the design and development of functional hybrid membranes based on FPU. PMID:23108344

We show that the tensor product of two unital C -algebras, one of which is nuclear and admits a unital -homomorphism from (the building blocks of) the Jiang-Su algebra, has Kadisons similarity property. As a consequence, we obtain that a unital C -algebra that absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra tensorially also has this property.

This evaluation addresses the product quality, waste reduction and economic issues involved in recycling automotive and heavy-duty engine coolants. he specific recycling units evaluated are a fleet-size unit and a portable unit, both based on the technology of chemical filtration...

Basic data are presented on developments and trends in the field of solid fuels in European countries, Canada and the United States of of America. The data refer to production, stocks, inland availabilities, deliveries, trade, employment and labour productivity.

...731-TA-1070B (Review)] Tissue Paper From China AGENCY: United States International...antidumping duty order on certain tissue paper products from China...antidumping duty order on certain tissue paper products from China would be likely...

...No. AMS-LS-08-0064] National Sheep Industry Improvement Center AGENCY: Agricultural...and regulations establishing a National Sheep Industry Improvement Center (NSIIC) program...and enhance production and marketing of sheep or goat products in the United...

The production rate of ethanol per unit of land was examined for different crops and the order of magnitude of the costs was calculated. Alcohol production programs in Brazil, Thailand and Sudan are described.

During spring 2005, two tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid and acellular pertussis vaccine (Tdap) products formulated for use in adolescents (and, for one product, use in adults) were licensed in the United States (BOOSTRIX, GlaxoSmithKline Biologi...

...Investigation No. 337-TA-692] In the Matter of Certain Ceramic Capacitors and Products Containing Same; Notice of Commission...sale within the United States after importation of certain ceramic capacitors and products containing the same by reason of...

...management, or the environment. Reduced milk fat percentage in dairy cows fed monensin...Indications for use . For increased milk production efficiency (production of marketable solids-corrected milk per unit of feed intake) in dairy...

Factors involved in the formulation of an ERDA-sponsored program for health and environmental research in connection with the fission fuel cycle are discussed under the following section headings: major issues associated with the use of nuclear power; fission fuel cycle technology: milling, UF/sub 6/ production, uranium enrichment, plutonium fuel fabrication, power production (reactors), fuel reprocessing, waste management, fuel and waste transportation; problem definition: characterization, measurement and monitoring, transport processes, health effects, ecological processes and effects, and integrated assessment; budget; characterization, measuring and monitoring program units; transport processes program units; health effects program units; ecological processes and effects program units; and integrated assessment program units. (JGB)

Background Effective pretreatment is key to achieving high enzymatic saccharification efficiency in processing lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars, biofuels and value-added products. Ionic liquids (ILs), still relatively new class of solvents, are attractive for biomass pretreatment because some demonstrate the rare ability to dissolve all components of lignocellulosic biomass including highly ordered (crystalline) cellulose. In the present study, three ILs, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C4mim]Cl), 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C2mim]Cl), 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([C2mim]OAc) are used to dissolve/pretreat and fractionate sugarcane bagasse. In these IL-based pretreatments the biomass is completely or partially dissolved in ILs at temperatures greater than 130°C and then precipitated by the addition of an antisolvent to the IL biomass mixture. For the first time mass balances of IL-based pretreatments are reported. Such mass balances, along with kinetics data, can be used in process modelling and design. Results Lignin removals of 10% mass of lignin in bagasse with [C4mim]Cl, 50% mass with [C2mim]Cl and 60% mass with [C2mim]OAc, are achieved by limiting the amount of water added as antisolvent to 0.5 water:IL mass ratio thus minimising lignin precipitation. Enzyme saccharification (24 h, 15FPU) yields (% cellulose mass in starting bagasse) from the recovered solids rank as: [C2mim]OAc(83%) > >[C2mim]Cl(53%)?=?[C4mim]Cl(53%). Composition of [C2mim]OAc-treated solids such as low lignin, low acetyl group content and preservation of arabinosyl groups are characteristic of aqueous alkali pretreatments while those of chloride IL-treated solids resemble aqueous acid pretreatments. All ILs are fully recovered after use (100% mass as determined by ion chromatography). Conclusions In all three ILs regulated addition of water as an antisolvent effected a polysaccharide enriched precipitate since some of the lignin remained dissolved in the aqueous IL solution. Of the three IL studied [C2mim]OAc gave the best saccharification yield, material recovery and delignification. The effects of [C2mim]OAc pretreatment resemble those of aqueous alkali pretreatments while those of [C2mim]Cl and [C4mim]Cl resemble aqueous acid pretreatments. The use of imidazolium IL solvents with shorter alkyl chains results in accelerated dissolution, pretreatment and degradation. PMID:12490959

We give the sharp bounds for the product and the sum of two distances between opposite sides of hyperbolic Lambert quadrilaterals in the unit disk. Also, we consider the same product problem for the image of these hyperbolic Lambert quadrilaterals under quasiconformal mappings from the unit disk onto itself.

Nine swine slaughter plants and 19 swine production units were randomly selected for sampling from the six highest swine-producing states representing a total of 64% of the United States swine production. Three composites of 10 fresh swine fecal samples were obtained from each slaughter plant, repre...

Slow-down in productivity growth rate since the mid-sixties is now a widely accepted phenomenon afflicting the United States economy. The slowdown in productivity growth at the aggregate economy-wide level is reflected by evidence of anemic productivity growth at the industry level. Baumol and Wolff relate the slowdown in productivity growth at the aggregate level to the slowdown in productivity growth at the sectoral level based on their thesis of asymptotic stagnancy in productivity growth. This study investigates Baumol and Wolff's hypothesis of asymptotic stagnancy of productivity using extended form of Leontief's input-output model. The major findings of this study are: (1) high overall productivity growth sectors have a low variance in productivity growth among occupations; and (2) the variance in growth rates of total occupational labor requirements per unit of output explain 47% of total variation in sectoral growth rate of total labor requirement per unit of output.

This report presents current data on production, consumption, stocks, imports, exports, and prices of the principal energy commodities in the United States. Also included are data on international production of crude oil, consumption of petroleum products, petroleum stocks, and production of electricity from nuclear-powered facilities. 36 figs., 57 tabs.

This publication presents current data on production, consumption, stocks, imports, exports, and prices of the principal energy commodities in the United States. Also included are data on international production of crude oil, consumption of petroleum products, petroleum stocks, and production of electricity from nuclear-powered facilities. 36 figs., 57 tabs.

Production and Engineering Group promotes the development of a manufacturing system that can cope with changes in the kind and amount of production accompanied by various customer needs. We must reduce the preparation term for production of new units and achieve a sharp cut in equipment investment costs. This paper introduces a new kind of manufacturing system in machining of engine units and also describes the outline and result of this system. (author)

Organic farming practices have been promoted as, inter alia, reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. This meta-analysis systematically analyses published studies that compare environmental impacts of organic and conventional farming in Europe. The results show that organic farming practices generally have positive impacts on the environment per unit of area, but not necessarily per product unit. Organic farms tend to have higher soil organic matter content and lower nutrient losses (nitrogen leaching, nitrous oxide emissions and ammonia emissions) per unit of field area. However, ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching and nitrous oxide emissions per product unit were higher from organic systems. Organic systems had lower energy requirements, but higher land use, eutrophication pot...

In pilot plant studies on air flotation systems for installation between the primary API separators and the impounding basin of the waste water treatment train at the Sun Petroleum Products Co. Toledo, Ohio, refinery, an Envirex Inc. dissolved air flotation unit and an Envirotech Corp., Wemco Division, induced air flotation unit performed equally well. The dissolved air flotation unit averaged 82Vertical Bar3air flotation unit averaged 81Vertical Bar3air flotation designs. One high-molecular cationic polymer also worked well in the induced air flotation unit. In pilot plant tests, the amount of additive necessary depended on the contaminant concentration in the water.

Estimates for algal production cost vary widely due to differing assumptions. Differences in assumptions make comparisons between proposed algal production systems difficult. Existing economic analyses have ignored potential capital cost growth and under performance of early generation algal production plants, which impact the preliminary unit cost of algal biofuels, which could affect investment decisions. Therefore the goal of this work was to compare the capital cost growth (ratio of actual to estimated cost), plant performance (ratio of actual performance to design), and unit cost growth factor (the ratio of cost growth to plant performance), of potential algal production pathways. Three production technologies were investigated: (1) open raceway ponds (ORP), (2) tubular photobioreacto...

In this paper, high-concentration sugars were produced from pretreated corn stover. The raw corn stover was pretreated in a process combining steam explosion and alkaline hydrogen-peroxide. The hemicellulose and lignin were removed greatly. The cellulose content increased to 73.2%. Fed-batch enzymatic hydrolysis was initiated with 12% (w/v) solids loading and 20 FPU/g solids. Then, 6% solids were fed consecutively at 12, 36 and 60 h. After 144 h, the final concentrations of reducing sugar, glucose, cellobiose and xylose reached 220, 175, 22 and 20 g/L, respectively. The final total biomass conversion was 60% in fed-batch process. PMID:20061139

Novel fluorinated polyurethanes (FPU) with fluorine-containing pendent groups were synthesized from fluorinated polyether glycol (PTMG-g-HFP), 1, 6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) or toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and 1, 4-butanodiol (BDO). The structure of the fluorinated polyurethanes was confirmed by the use of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The relation between surface components and structure of the fluorinated polyurethanes was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle and water resistance measurements. The results from XPS and contact angle studies indicated that the surface of fluorinated polyurethanes was significantly enriched with fluorine groups. The water resistance of polyurethanes was evidently improved by introducing fluorinated gro...

As of June 2009, the United States had 151 active biodiesel producers with total production capacity of 2.1 billion gallons per year. Actual production for all of 2008 was 678 million gallons. Production for the first 6 months of 2009, however, was 188 mi...

The conference focuses on Subsea problems and requirements and contains 18 presentation on the topics: Flow management, autonomous underwater vehicles, risers and other technologies, installation of offshore production and exploitation units, management and maintenance of Subsea installations, design, production and functionality aspects of the Subsea structures and equipment, simulation aspects and oil and gas exploitation and production. (tk)

The study illustrates how joint production theory can be applied in estimating the profitability of fractionating industrial solid wastes, a given product and the wastes produced in connection with its manufacture being regarded as a production-planning unit. Two case studies showing how the approac...

The production association Gor'knefteorgsintez has produced an automatic production control system using computers in a closed loop to control the operating mode of the columns (K-11, K-12, K-13) of the L-35-6 unit. Creation of the automatic production control system used algorithms for static optimization of rectification from the characteristic plate temperature.

Each generation company may have number of generating units of different fuel consumption characteristics, some generating units consume more fuel as compared to other units this directly effects the production cost and profit of the company. Production cost and profit of the company is also affected by unit commitment and economic dispatch. Each and every power generation company wants to maximize/increase profit, same is the case for independent power producers (IPPs). Profit can be maximized by changing the unit commitment and economic dispatch strategy. Previously it was achieved in such a way that production cost goes to minimum level. But as the competition in power market is going to increase day by day IPPs trend of UC solution is toward achieving maximum profit. Previously achieve...

Heating of chlorophyll a was performed at 350 °C for 12 h in relation to the origin of sedimentary benzoporphyrins. The product was oxidized by chromic acid to give phthalimide and its methyl homologs, which indicated the formation of benzopyrrole units in the substrate or its degraded fragments. The heating also produced a monomethylpyrrole unit, suggesting that a vinyl group of the chlorophyll was used as a part of the thermally generated benzopyrrole units.   

High input agriculture is relatively new in Hungary. Crop rotation was introduced in the XIX. century, extensive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides became important only in the second half of the last century. Agricultural production has become efficient per unit of human labour and per unit...

This report covers progress on the Milliwatt Generator Project during April 1983--March 1984. Activities included (plutonium 238 oxide) fuel processing and characterization, production of heat sources, fabrication of pressure-burst test units, compatibility studies, impact testing, examination of surveillance units, Inconel weld development, and qualilty assurance.

atomic storage of pipeline products for a unit of work across a relational ... Module code need only process the data specified by the unit-of-work ..... an operator to restart failed jobs after the problem that caused the failure is corrected .

Due to an extensive decentralization in the County Council of Östergötland during the 1980s, the demands on follow-up reports have increased on the production units. In order to support the units in following up their organizations, the board of the County Council decided to implement Total Quality ...

A unit is suggested consisting of a parabolic concentrator situated lengthwise along a focal line beside which a ringed tubular receiver is located. To increase the unit's productivity by increasing the surface area available for heating, the receiver has ringed sectioning and a full slot on the concentrator side.

The use of synthetic and natural waxes and resins to coat fresh fruits and vegetables has been researched and practiced in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia since the 1930s. Development of edible coatings for use on meat products was fist reported in the late 1950s. Currently, ed...

Diuraphis noxia (Kurdjumov)(Russian wheat aphid) has severe economic impacts on wheat and barley production in the United States. The interaction between the Russian wheat aphid and its cereal hosts is poorly understood. However, the recent appearance of new biotypes in the United States showed that...

The review includes individual project reports on the soap pilot plant; the promotion of the rural industries of Ashanti; metal products design unit; and the handloom weaving unit. The appointment of a core staff of research fellows to the Technology Cons...

The net cost of heat production at cogeneration stations equipped with gas turbine units, steam turbine units, and combined-cycle plants is analyzed by way of comparison. It is shown that the minimal net cost will be achieved in the case of using certain types of power installations depending on the network tariff for electric energy.

...oil-production field located on water). Retaining the ``primarily...injury occurs over the navigable waters of the United States) where...maintenance such as cleaning, painting, trash removal, housekeeping...vessel including installations, painting and maintenance work....

Drinking water disinfection has effectively eliminated much of the morbidity and mortality associated with waterborne infectious diseases in the United States. Various disinfection processes, however, produce certain types and amounts of disinfection by-products (DBPs), including...

Fulfilling this Statement of Work (SOW) entails a fast-paced effort aimed at reducing ... preliminary design and analysis for the flight production units, formulate ... compliance with technical, schedule, and financial commitments of the contract.

In the United States, anthracnose fruit and crown rots of strawberry, incited by the fungal species Colletotrichum acutatum, C. fragariae, and C. gloeosporioides, were initially considered 'southeastern' diseases. These diseases are becoming significant problems in other strawberry production regio...

...comments suggested that x-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology...failure modes and effects analyses (FMEAs), designed...000 units of product X. Under the proposal...failure modes and effects analyses (FMEAs) designed...

U.S. Housing Market Conditions Collects, analyses, and reports on housing production, marketing, affordability, foreclosures, and trends throughout the United States on a Quarterly Basis. Each Issue features a summary piece that elucidates what the Statis...

... Safety & Health Topics Publications and Products Programs NIOSH TICK-BORNE DISEASES On this Page Overview Frequently Asked ... fever Powassan encephalitis Q fever Where are infected ticks found in the United States? Tick-Borne Disease ...

Gas- Off Products from Foam Non-Toxic EMS,. 54. EMS 361. Gas- Off ..... High M.W. Ethoxy Carboxylic Acid Esters. Methyl Tiglate ... Methyl Ethyl Benzene. Phenyl Pentane .... polymers (having dimethyl siloxy groups as monomer units) have ...

Industrial hemp has been the focus of official interest in several States. However, hemp and marijuana are different varieties of Cannabis sativa, which is classified as a controlled substance in the United States. With Canada now allowing hemp production...

...possibility of a new or different kind...the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations...The performance of fission product barriers...50-287, Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 1...possibility of a new or different kind...not introduce a new mode of plant...

...Comments Concerning Compliance With Telecommunications Trade Agreements AGENCY: Office...the following agreements regarding telecommunications products and services of the United...CAFTA-DR''), and any other telecommunications trade agreements, such as...

The appendices to chapter 7 of the master plan study on district heating in the municipalities of Kohtla-Jarve and Johvi (Estonia) present technical data on production units, also with regard to new facilities. (ARW)

production rate heliostats will be available for this program. The proposed receiver ..... direct the solar beam radiation to the receiver aperture. The drive unit can ... from the field controller, and drive the motors to correct the errors indi- cated.

...supervisors is considered essential for the success...both personal and organizational performance development...desired leadership behaviors, structure the...Training is an essential component of an...specialized knowledge essential to the organization...product lines, organizational units,...

MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF PHARMACEUTICAL GOOD MANUFACTURING PRACTICE REPORTS, MEDICAL DEVICE QUALITY SYSTEM AUDIT REPORTS, AND CERTAIN MEDICAL DEVICE PRODUCT EVALUATION REPORTS: UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY Specific Sector Provisions for Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing...

...RIN 1210-AB42 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Office of...Interim Final Rules for Group Health Plans and Health Insurance...investment, productivity, innovation, or on the ability of United...of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services...

...chemical products, off- specification or manufacturing chemical intermediates and container...still bottoms, light ends, spent solvents, filtrates, and decantates) from...O, or based upon combustion in fuel substitution units operating in accordance with...

...health providers; the update factor for hospital- specific per-diems...updated by the Medicare update factor for hospitals and units exempt...this is the same update factor used for the inpatient prospective...reduction for economy- wide productivity required by section...

...on symptoms. For example, mechanical respiration would be administered...pressure, decreased unit Mechanical respiration. respiration...packaging is adaptable to modern mass production and assembly...scientific, medical, and engineering data concerning special...

... Resources Fluoride Products Fluoride Toothpaste Form Concentrations of fluoride in toothpaste sold in the United States range from 1,000–1,500 ppm. Use Most people report brushing their teeth at ...

Hydrogen fuelling technology and infrastructure supplied by Air Products is now onstream and providing hydrogen to fuel cell powered material handling units at WinCo Foods' 800 000 ft^2 (74 000 m^2) grocery distribution center in Modesto, California.

Jan 23, 2006 ... ARCHIVED - Data Not Current ... Infinia has developed product lines for Stirling power generators, based directly on multiple SBIR's; Generated ... generator for European residential cogeneration to market >100,000 units per ...

...No. 337-TA-680] In the Matter of Certain Machine Vision Software, Machine Vision Systems, and Products Containing Same; Notice...the United States after importation of certain machine vision software, machine vision systems, or...

... was nylon raschel net which in the unloaded condition hung slack on the frame . ... Stresses caused by motions or forces included acceleration, weightlessness, .... an astronaut metabolic heat production of 500 British thermal units per hour ...

A survey of the cytogenetic effects of exposure to ethylene oxide was conducted on 43 workers in ethylene oxide production units and 27 workers in a quality-assurance laboratory who were exposed to ethylene oxide and other chemicals. Circulating lymphocytes were isolated and assayed for chromosomal aberrations. Median ethylene oxide exposures ranged from 0.14 to 10.9 parts per million (ppm) in the laboratory and 0.19 to 1.0 ppm in the production unit. No significant increase in the incidence of chromosomal aberrations occurred in the production unit workers. Increases in the incidence of chromatid deletions and exchanges, total chromatid aberrations, percent of abnormal cells, and total aberrations per cell occurred in the laboratory workers. Working in ethylene oxide production units may not cause a statistically significant increase in chromosomal aberrations. Work in the quality-assurance laboratory is associated with genotoxic effects; however, these cannot be attributed solely to ethylene oxide due to the complex nature of the working environments.

A survey of proteolytic assay methods for urokinase activity was performed. ... The colorimetric product concentration is determined by measuring absorbance at .... (fbgn), 2 casein units plastainogen (psgn), and 0.5 m l thrombin. (tmbn, 10 NIH ...

A COMPACT GAS PROCESSING DEVICE WAS INVESTIGATED TO INCREASE GAS PRODUCTION FROM REMOTE, PREVIOUSLY UN-ECONOMIC RESOURCES. THE UNIT WAS TESTED ON AIR AND WATER AND WITH NATURAL GAS AND LIQUID. RESULTS ARE REPORTED WITH RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK.

Investi-. Piezoelectric Sorption Detector - The resonant frequency of a ... are currently in production in the United States and in Japan still ..... This energy gap may be too large to bridge; however, NASA-. -8. -8 ..... 67-72, Tokyo (May 1965).

The Office of Environmental Management is the custodian of large quantities of toxic radioactive materials from manufacturing and processing facilities after the United States halted nuclear weapons production. Because these materials include high-specific activity (HSA) and low-...

5 days ago ... Vecenergy (The Vecellio Group), West Palm Beach, FL, United States ... family that produces seeds from which oil can be extracted for use as biofuel. ... J. curcas is a feasible species for the commercial production of biodiesel.

We find the nearest product states for arbitrary generalized W states of n qubits, and show that the nearest product state is essentially unique if the W state is highly entangled. It is specified by a unit vector in Euclidean n-dimensional space. We use this duality between unit vectors and highly entangled W states to find the geometric measure of entanglement of such states.

This work describes 2 innovative concepts. The first is the combination of all 4 main functions of an offshore production facility into one unit: production gathering; processing, treating, and gas disposal; storage; and measurement and transportation. The floating production storage and offloading system for the Cadlao field in the Philippines combines all of these functions into a single tanker based unit. The development of this production system required the application of existing operating experience together with new component design and applied research effort for specialized system features. The secondary concept is the ability to lease such an integral system.

The project is designed to increase recoverable petroleum reserves in the United States. The Green River Formation in Utah`s Uinta Basin contains abundant hydrocarbons that are not easily recovered by primary means. The successful Lomax Monument Butte Unit water flood will be evaluated under this contract, and based on this information, water floods will be initiated in nearby Travis and Boundary units. In 1987, Lomax Exploration Company started a water flood in the Monument Butte Unit of a Douglas Creek member of the Green River Formation. This was a low-energy, geologically heterogeneous reservoir producing a waxy crude oil. Primary production yielded about 5% of the OOIP. Due to the water flood project, total production will yield an estimated recovery of 20% OOIP. The Monument Butte Unit {number_sign}10-34 and the Travis Unit {number_sign}14A-28 were put on production the last quarter of 1992. Formation Microimaging and Magnetic Resonance Imaging logs were used to evaluate these wells as commercially productive. Through June 30, 1993, the Monument Butte {number_sign} 10-34 (11/27/92 first production) has produced 6,277 barrels of oil and 6.5 MMcf of gas and the Travis {number_sign}14A-28 (1/1/93 first production) has produced 7,717 barrels of oil and 19.9 MMcf of gas.

This curriculum unit, intended for students in grade 6, covers the Mayas, Mayan history, and ancient civilizations. The unit was developed using Roger Taylor's collaborative team model "Connecting the Curriculum: Using an Integrated, Interdisciplinary, Thematic Approach." The unit addresses multiple intelligences, brain research, constructivist models of learning, and E. D. Hirsch's cultural literacy terminology. The unit accounts for individual abilities so that all students can participate and be successful. Each thematic set of activities lists resources needed, the anticipatory set, the activity performed, and the product created. Resource lists contain poetry; people; books for students; books, periodicals, and software for teachers; and Web sites. (BT)

This research develops an agent based simulation model for application to the sortie generation process, focusing on a single fighter aircraft unit. The simulation includes representations of each individual maintainer within the unit, along with supervisory agents that provide direction in the form of dynamic task prioritization and resource assignment. Using a high-fidelity depiction of each entity, an exploration of the effects of different mixes of skill levels and United States Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs) on sortie production is performed. Analysis is conducted using an experimental design with results presented demonstrating the effects of maintenance manning decisions on the Combat Mission Readiness (CMR) of a fighter unit.

We investigate the mechanism of heat conduction in one-dimensional (1D) quantum FPU chain with quantum fluctuation in the framework of semiquantal molecular dynamics. In the semiquantal many-body simulations, a Hartree-type many-body wave function is adopted for a whole chain and a single-particle state of a particle is represented by a trial wave function with Jackiw-Kerman (JK) form. With the help of the Dirac’s time-dependent variational principle (TDVP), a set of equations of the variational parameters contained in the JK wave packet is obtained, and it describes the quantum dynamics of the nonlinear lattices approximately. These equations not only prove highly efficient in recovering dynamics of classical heat conduction, but also allow exploring the case with quantum mechanical characteristics. As a consequence, we find the thermal conductivity diverges with system size as well as in the classical version when considering quantum fluctuation. Furthermore, in three different temperature regions it is observed that the enhancement of the quantum fluctuation increases the heat flux through the 1D quantum FPU chain.

The efficiency of biomass utilization can be significantly improved by fractionation of biomass. A two-stage percolation process was investigated for pretreatment and fractionation of corn stover. The two-stage process is composed of hot water treatment followed by treatment with aqueous ammonia, both applied in a flow-through (percolation) reactor. The first stage processing is intended for hemicellulose removal whereas the second stage is intended for delignification. The pretreated material was nearly pure cellulose and both reagents are cheap and environmentally friendly. The conditions that achieve satisfactory level of biomass fractionation and acceptable enzymatic hydrolysis were identified in terms of reaction temperature, flow rate (retention time) and reaction time for each stage. With proper operation of two-stage treatment, fractionation of biomass was achieved to the extent that the xylan fraction is hydrolyzed with 92-95% conversion, and recovered with 83-86% yields; and the lignin removal is 75-81%. The remaining solid after two-stage treatment contained 78-85% cellulose. The two-stage treatments enhanced the enzymatic digestibility to 90-96% with 60 FPU/g of glucan, and 87-89% with 15 FPU/g of glucan. In two-stage treatment, the composition and digestibility data indicate that the lignin content in the biomass is one of the major factors controlling the enzymatic digestibility. PMID:16171679

Within the IEA activity on Pretreatment of Ligno-cellulosic Materials, a number of laboratories performed enzymatic hydrolyses of a standard cellulose and pretreated spruce and aspen wood under strictly standardized conditions. The reproducibility of the time dependence of hydrolysis was examined by incubating Sigmacell 50 (20 g/litre) with a standard cellulase (Celluclas Trichoderma sp.),200 FPU/litre, at pH 4.8, 50{sup o}C. The liberated glucose was determined by HPLC or by the glucose oxidase method after 6, 24, 48 and 72 h. The individual deviation from the mean values of 11 laboratories was in the range 5-10%. In the enzyme-dependent hydrolysis, Sigmacell 50 was incubated with increasing amounts of Celluclast (5-100 FPU/g, 24 h). Based on the liberated glucose, the maximum digestibility of Sigmacell 50 calculated by 11 laboratories was 64.3{+-}3.7% (mean{+-}standard deviation). Similar reproducibility was obtained with pretreated aspen and spruce wood. This inter-laboratory comparison indicates that both tests, the time-dependent and the enzyme-dependent hydrolysis methods, are reproducible tools to evaluate the enzymatic hydrolysability of lignocellulosics for technical applications. (author).

Corn stover was pretreated with an excess of calcium hydroxide (0.5 g Ca(OH)2/g raw biomass) in non-oxidative and oxidative conditions at 25, 35, 45, and 55 degrees C. The optimal condition is 55 degrees C for 4 weeks with aeration. Glucan (91.3%) and xylan (51.8%) were converted to glucose and xylose respectively, when the treated corn stover was enzymatically hydrolyzed with 15 FPU/g cellulose. Only 0.073 g Ca(OH)2 was consumed per g of raw corn stover. Of the initial lignin, 87.5% was maximally removed. Almost all acetyl groups were removed. After 4 weeks at 55 degrees C with aeration, some cellulose and hemicellulose were solubilized as monomers and oligomers in the pretreatment liquor. When considering the dissolved fragments of glucan and xylan in the pretreatment liquor, the overall yields of glucose and xylose were 93.2% and 79.5% at 15 FPU/g cellulose. The pretreatment liquor has no inhibitory effect on ethanol fermentation. PMID:16112487

Two distinct pretreatment technologies, autohydrolysis and AFEX, have been applied to coastal Bermuda grass (CBG) followed by enzymatic hydrolysis in order to compare the effects of pretreatment on the subsequent sugar generation. Furthermore, the influence of structural features from each pretreatment on biomass digestibility was characterized with SEM, ATR-FTIR, and XRD. Enzymatic conversion of pretreated solids from the pretreatments increased with elevated temperature and longer residence times. AFEX pretreatment at 100 degrees C for 30 min produced a sugar yield of 94.8% of theoretical possible with 30 FPU/g enzymatic loading, the maximum achieved with AFEX. It was also shown that with autohydrolysis at 170 degrees C for 60 min that 55.4% sugar yield of the theoretical possible was produced with a 30 FPU/g enzymatic loading, the maximum with autohydrolysis. AFEX pretreatment does not change the chemical composition of CBG but autohydrolysis reduces hemicellulose content in the pretreated solids. Both pretreatments cause re-localization of lignin components. There was no observed correlation between crystallinity and enzyme digestibility of the pretreated solids. AFEX pretreatment developed more enzymatic accessibility to pretreated solids of CBG than did autohydrolysis pretreatment, leading to more sugar generation through the whole process. The total amount of sugars accounted for with autohydrolysis decreases with increasing temperature, consistent with increased byproduct generation via thermal degradation reactions. PMID:20223654

We have previously demonstrated that pretreatment of corn stover with dilute sulfuric acid can achieve high digestibility and efficient recovery of hemicellulose sugars with high yield and concentration. Further improvement of this process was sought in this work. A modification was made in the operation of the percolation reactor that the reactor is preheated under atmospheric pressure to remove moisture that causes autohydrolysis. This eliminated sugar decomposition during the preheating stage and led to a considerable improvement in overall sugar yield. In addition, liquid throughput was minimized to the extent that only one reactor void volume of liquid was collected. This was done to attain a high xylose concentration in the hydrolyzate. The optimum reaction and operating conditions were identified wherein near quantitative enzymatic digestibilities are obtained with enzyme loading of 15 FPU/g glucan. With a reduced enzyme loading of 5 FPU/g glucan, the enzymatic digestibility was decreased, but still reached a level of 92%. Decomposition of carbohydrates was extremely low as indicated by the measured glucan and xylan mass closures (recovered sugar plus unreacted) which were 98% and 94%, respectively. The data obtained in this work indicate that the digestibility is related to the extent of xylan removal. PMID:15930580

Gas-sweetening units using diethanolamine (DEA) and methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) are occasionally subject to corrosion. Discounting the basic degradation products of DEA as the cause, researchers (1) confirmed the presence of formic, oxalic, and acetic acids in used amine solutions, (2) defined oxygen's role in forming these carboxylic acids, and (3) demonstrated that the acid contents of different units are about the same order of magnitude for both DEA and MDEA. In most cases, oxygen can be easily excluded from gas-treating units, especially in storage tanks, thereby limiting the formation of acid products.

Here are given some news about the petrochemistry and plastics sectors: the assignment of Enichem to Sabic could be reached by the end of the year 2001; BP has decided to close down one of its polypropylene unit of the Chocolate Bayou firm (Texas) (that is to say: a production of 204000 t per year); AtoFina aims for the third world place for polypropylene with 1)a 'debottlenecking' on the Gonfreville unit (France) and 2)the start of a unit of 380000 t of production per year in 2002 at Feluy (Belgium). (O.M.)

A product pipe is laid between the steam-raising unit inside and the turbine plant outside the containment. To compensate for the thermal stresses between the product pipe and the containment, compensators are welded in. The product pipe is thus supported so as to slide on an intermediate piece, in order to make longitudinal movement of the product pipe possible. The compensations are welded to rings, so that a compensator chamber is formed, which is accessible for repeated tests.

Energy developments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) include the formation of a national energy committee and an increase in oil production to 3.5% of total world production. The UAE has two refineries, is building a gas liquefaction plant, and expects to more than double its electric power demand between 1980 and 1985. Local consumption, politics, and world energy markets will be among the factors determining future oil production. Energy consumption and production data are presented in two tables. (DCK)

Data presented in this report for March 1995, describes the supply and disposition of petroleum products in the United States and major US geographic regions. The data series describe production, imports and exports, inter-Petroleum Administration for Defense (PAD) District movements, and inventories by the primary suppliers of petroleum products in the United States (50 States and the District of Columbia). The reporting universe includes those petroleum sectors in primary supply. Included are: petroleum refiners, motor gasoline blenders, operators of natural gas processing plants and fractionators, inter-PAD transporters, importers, and major inventory holders of petroleum products and crude oil. When aggregated, the data reported by these sectors approximately represent the consumption of petroleum products in the United States.