Design of a Lab-Scale Two-Stage Rice Husk Gasifier

AbstractRice is a major product in Thailand and a large quantity of rice husk are generated annually in the rice milling industries, which can be used for energy exploitation. A commercial 400 MWe, two-stage gasifier has been constructed in Lopburi province using rice husk as the fuel. It is necessary to perform a further development and study of the optimization conditions to achieve a desired operating of the plant. A design procedure was developed for a 50 kWth lab-scale gasifier, and the calculations were made based on the essential parameters such as volumetric flow rate, minimum fluidized velocity, residence time to find out the dimension parameters of the reactor. On the basis of the air supplied rate, the dimensions of the first stage was calculated to provide a sustaining condition of the fluidization. The calculated diameters and heights of the lower part and upper part of the first stage were found to be 0.09, 0.13, 0.50, and 0.50 m, respectively. The height of gasification and char reduction chamber in the second stage was estimated to be 1.40 m and the calculated throat diameter was 0.10 m, whereas, the height of the char bed was variable. This design can facilitate varying parameters such as equivalence ratio, superficial velocity, and temperature. The optimization design is obtained from the experiments and from the theoretical and experimental information available in the literature

A Study of Energy Consumption of the Household Sector in Myanmar

Due to rapid economic growth, structural changes in Myanmar’s society have led to a pattern of increasing household energy consumption.  As an agro based country, biomass-based fuels are currently being used as a major fuel in Myanmar. They were about 76% of a total primary energy supply of 14.056 MTOE derived from biomass in 2011. In the same year, the household sector consumed 10.464 MTOE and became the largest energy consumption, accounting for 80% of the total final energy consumption, followed by the industry, transportation, agriculture and other sector with shares of 10%, 6%, 1% and 3% respectively. Given the country’s steady economic growth, cleaner energy sources are needed. This study focused on analysis and forecast for energy demand of household sector in Myanmar. The household’s energy demand was estimated by using an end use model, the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning (LEAP) model. The model was applied to analyze data collected from household’s living in urban and rural areas at the regions of Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar. Further, the behaviors of household energy utilization at different level of income groups were presented and discussed in this study. Keywords: Myanmar’s household energy consumption, LEAP mode

The comparison of balancing between male and female student at Faculty of Sports Science in Chulalongkorn University / Risyadinie Rasyiqah Razmi … [et al.]

Balance can be defined as the state of having weight spread equally so that it will not fall, balance is the ability to move or to remain in a position without losing control or falling. The objective of this study is to investigate whether any gender differences exist in balance performance during quiet one leg standing among Chulalongkorn University (CU) students. This study is an experimental research design. An experimental study been used to test the hypothesis in this study. In this study, the independent variable is gender while the dependent variable is the balancing. The controlled variable is the subject must first do helicopter spinning for 5 complete rounds before proceeding to the balancing test. The samples are from the students of Faculty of Sports Science in Chulalongkorn University. Based on the Cohen’s table, total sample size for this study is 34 students which consist of 17 females and 17 males. The sampling method will be used is purposive non-random sampling. The experiment results collected and the score recorded. The SPSS Statistics version 20.0 be used for all statistical analysis. The results be analyzed using an Independent Sample t-test analysis to find out whether there is a balance difference among the gender. The dependent variable is numerical and the observation is independent. The distribution data is normal which is based on Central Limit Theorem (CLT) n>30. Descriptive analysis used to assess mean and standard deviation (SD) of all the variables. There is an equal score for both gender; male and female in overall stability index. For normal score, both male and female get 6 out of 17 while 11 out of 17 of both genders obtained a good score which is better than the norms

Drug resistance patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and risk factors associated with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the upper southern part of Thailand

Background: this study aimed to assess the drug resistant pattern of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and the risk factors associated to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases (MDR-TB) in upper part of southern Thailand.  Methods: a total of 3238 TB cases was retrieved from a database of the office of prevention and control disease region 11. Only 1008 cases were confirmed by culture growth for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and drug-susceptibility testing (DST) during a period of 4 years (January 2013 to December 2016). The risk factors, including gender, age group, residence place, and history of treatment were analysed using multivariate logistic regression to predict the MDR-TB cases.  Results: among 1008 TB cases included in study, 77.4% of them were males, 31.5% lived in rural area with median age of 45.0 years (IQR = 23.0), 27.6% were retreatment for tuberculosis, 25.9%, 10.8%, 3.0%, 10.7% and 9.1 were determined to be resistant to isoniazid, rifampicin, ethambutol, streptomycin and MDR-TB, respectively. Adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of MDR-TB were 5.4 (2.68-11.03), and 4.2 (2.10, 8.45) for retreatment patients, and on treatment patients, respectively.  Conclusions: drug resistance tuberculosis is considerable problem in upper part of southern Thailand. Major risk factors involved previous history of TB treatment. Thus, it emphasizes on patients who had a history of previous TB treatment.&nbsp

Antibody-mediated Prevention of Fusarium Mycotoxins in the Field

Fusarium mycotoxins directly accumulated in grains during the infection of wheat and other cereal crops by Fusarium head blight (FHB) pathogens are detrimental to humans and domesticated animals. Prevention of the mycotoxins via the development of FHB-resistant varieties has been a challenge due to the scarcity of natural resistance against FHB pathogens. Various antibodies specific to Fusarium fungi and mycotoxins are widely used in immunoassays and antibody-mediated resistance in planta against Fusarium pathogens has been demonstrated. Antibodies fused to antifungal proteins have been shown to confer a very significantly enhanced Fusarium resistance in transgenic plants. Thus, antibody fusions hold great promise as an effective tool for the prevention of mycotoxin contaminations in cereal grains. This review highlights the utilization of protective antibodies derived from phage display to increase endogenous resistance of wheat to FHB pathogens and consequently to reduce mycotoxins in field. The role played by Fusarium-specific antibody in the resistance is also discussed