Selected Topics in the Utilization of Natural Resources: Production of Transportation Fuel and Potential Biomass source for use in Biorefinery

As the price of corn-based ethanol products is estimated to continue increasing in the near future, lignocellulosics remains the only viable candidate as a renewable source of ethanol production. Wheat straw is grown in over 115 nations under a wide range of conditions, with 300 million tons being produced every year in North America and Europe alone. The Biorefinery proposed at SUNY ESF is based on the first, environmentally acceptable step of hot-water extraction {HWE) as a pretreatment, which removes easily accessible hemicelluloses. Most of the studies of HWE have been performed on different hardwoods (model species: sugar maple, Acer saccharum), and confirmed the dissolution of the majority of xylans. This study looked into the use of wheat straw in the HWE-based biorefinery. The chemical composition of wheat straw before HWE was determined by following several TAPPI and other methods used to analyze chemical composition. The HWE was performed in standard conditions proposed for hardwoods {2 hours, 160°(). The effect of HWE on the calorific value of the wheat straw was evaluated and confirmed that the loss of hemicelluloses during HWE results in an increase of energy of combustion of the extracted wheat straw which is a beneficial feature for potential use of hot-water extracted wheat straw as pellets for CHP (Combined Heat & Power) use. In addition, the delignification and deashing effects of HWE were evaluated

Elite rowing : technique and performance

In elite rowing competition the difference between Gold and Silver is often less than one second, and there is a high incidence of injury amongst the sport’s athletes. Previous studies into rowing have described kinetic and kinematic profiles, commented on the effects of factors such as fatigue and training status, and identified some aspects of rowing technique that may be associated with improvements in performance, or with injury mechanisms. However, such work has often been subject to significant errors and limitations, such as: restricting kinematic analysis to two-dimensions, small sample sizes, and lack of clinical and performance relevance. Furthermore there has been no one body of work to date that has published a comprehensive analysis of elite rowers’ technique and described its relevance to performance. This represents a gap in the performance literature. The primary aim of this thesis was to describe and analyse the kinetic output and three-dimensional kinematics of elite rowers. It was hypothesised that a comprehensive and explicit description of athletes’ technique could be compiled, and that aspects of this technique would be influenced by exercise intensity and longitudinal training. Furthermore, it was thought that discrete aspects of technique could be used to predict high levels of athletic performance, and individual’s risk of spinal and knee injuries. A custom experimental methodology was developed and several pilot studies optimised and validated the method. More than eleven hundred rowing trials were completed by members of the Great Britain elite rowing squad over a period of twenty six months. This provided kinetic and kinematic data that was treated and analysed using custom written software, and subjected to statistical modelling. The thesis described the method and kinematic model that was utilised. A detailed description of elite athletes’ rowing technique and kinematics was produced. Increasing exercise intensity influenced some of the measured parameters, and longitudinal feedback, and coaching interventions were effective in influencing the elite participants. Adopting a kyphotic posture in the lumbar region of the spine at any point in the rowing stroke was found to be detrimental to rowing performance, and may be linked to an increased risk of lumbar injury. Rapid extension of the lumbar spine was also thought to pose an injury risk, however it was found that athletes who extended the lumbar spine at the finish of the stroke exhibited better performance than those who did not. The kinematic characteristics of the lower limbs may positively influence rowers’ performance, and provide protection against spinal injury.Open acces

How Useful are Carboard Mock-Ups: the Use of Different Levels of Simulation Fidelity in Assessing Signallers\u27 Workload

Two techniques were utilised: the Bedford Scale and the NASA TLX. Assessments were made with two levels of fidelity. The first used a busy 15 minute scenario with seven different failure conditions using paper based layouts of the new signalling system. The second used a three dimensional representation of the proposed signal box layout for a busy one hour scenario. A key finding was that the new box could be run by two signallers with acceptable levels of workload, even with minor failures. A number of changes to the layout were proposed based on the experience of an hour\u27s simulation. The methodology showed that a cardboard model can be a useful tool in a participatory approach aiding the assessment of design and mental workload in a format that can be readily understood by all the stakeholders

Calmodulin As a Regulator of Circadian Clock Function and Photoperiodic Flowering in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Discrete changes in the amplitude, frequency, and cellular localisation of Calcium ion (Ca2+) transients encode information about numerous stimuli and function to mediate stimulus-specific responses. Cytoplasmic Ca2+ (Ca2+cyt) undergoes circadian oscillations in concentration that appear to be under the control of the same endogenous oscillator that regulates expression of genes in the photoperiodic-flowering pathway. It is currently not known whether these circadian [Ca2+cyt] oscillations are biochemical artefacts or are decoded and function to transduce clock dependent responses. Calmodulin (CaM) is a primary node in Ca2+ signalling in plants and as such is a promising target for investigating the role of Ca2+ in clock-controlled processes. In this study, Arabidopsis thaliana were treated with experimentally validated concentrations of pharmacological CaM inhibitors. Under inductive photoperiods (16 h light : 8 h dark), CaM inhibition was found to increase developmental flowering time, whilst under non-inductive photoperiods no such changes were evident. Inhibition of CaM led to changes in expression of the key clock gene TIMING OF CAB EXPRESSION 1 and flowering time genes, CONSTANS and FLOWERING LOCUS T and removed repression of flowering in darkness. These observations are consistent with CaM modulating the activity of the putative clock component GIGANTEA and the proteasomal targeting protein SUPPRESSOR OF PHYA-105. Due to the unwanted side effects often generated by chemical CaM inhibitors, a peptide inhibitor of CaM comprising a green fluorescent protein / calspermin fusion and labelled smGN was developed. Surface plasmon resonance analysis and affinity chromatography showed smGN to have extremely high selectivity for, and affinity to, CaM and to function as a powerful inhibitor of CaM in vitro. Further work on the methodology used to deploy smGN as a recombinant alternative to chemical CaM inhibitors in planta is also described.BBSR

Carter-Payne homomorphisms and Jantzen filtrations

We prove a q-analogue of the Carter-Payne theorem in the case where the differences between the parts of the partitions are sufficiently large. We identify a layer of the Jantzen filtration which contains the image of these Carter-Payne homomorphisms and we show how these homomorphisms compose.Comment: 30 page

Suppression of reactive oxygen species generation in heart mitochondria from anoxic turtles: the role of complex I S-nitrosation.

Freshwater turtles (Trachemys scripta) are among the very few vertebrates capable of tolerating severe hypoxia and re-oxygenation without suffering from damage to the heart. As myocardial ischemia and reperfusion causes a burst of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) in mammals, the question arises as to whether, and if so how, this ROS burst is prevented in the turtle heart. We find that heart mitochondria isolated from turtles acclimated to anoxia produce less ROS than mitochondria from normoxic turtles when consuming succinate. As succinate accumulates in the hypoxic heart and is oxidized when oxygen returns, this suggests an adaptation to lessen ROS production. Specific S-nitrosation of complex I can lower ROS in mammals and here we show that turtle complex I activity and ROS production can also be strongly depressed in vitro by S-nitrosation. We detect in vivo endogenous S-nitrosated complex I in turtle heart mitochondria, but these levels are unaffected upon anoxia acclimation. Thus, while heart mitochondria from anoxia-acclimated turtles generate less ROS and have a lower aerobic capacity than those from normoxic turtles, this is not due to decreases in complex I activity or expression levels. Interestingly, in-gel activity staining reveals that most complex I of heart mitochondria from normoxic and anoxic turtles forms stable super-complexes with other respiratory enzymes and, in contrast to mammals, these are not disrupted by dodecyl maltoside. Taken together, these results show that although S-nitrosation of complex I is a potent mechanism to prevent ROS formation upon re-oxygenation after anoxia in vitro, this is not a major cause of the suppression of ROS production by anoxic turtle heart mitochondria