Optimizing culture medium for debittering constitutive enzyme naringinase production by Aspergillus oryzae JMU316

The objective of this study was to investigate nutrient requirements for extracellular constitutive naringinase production by Aspergillus oryzae JMU316. The one-factor-at-a-time method was used to determine the impact of different carbon and nitrogen sources on naringinase production. Naringin exhibited the highest naringinase activity compared to all other carbon sources and pomelo pericarp powder produced comparable naringinase activity. Pomelo pericarp powder was selected as carbon source because it is a waste of fruit process, which means that it is a cheap resource and has additional environmental benefits. Peptone proved to be the most suitable nitrogen source for naringinase production. Subsequently, the orthogonal matrix method was used to further optimize the concentration of pomelo pericarp powder, peptone, and minerals. The optimal concentration of the components were15 g pomelo pericarp powder, 12 g peptone, 0.2 g CaCl2, 0.4 g NaCl, 2 g MgSO4·7H2O and 1 g K2HPO4 in 1 L distilled water for producing 408.28 IU/mL naringinase activity. The effects of medium components on naringinase were in the order of pomelo pericarp powder, K2HPO4, NaCl, peptone, CaCl2, MgSO4·7H2O. This two-step optimization strategy used in this study can be widely applied to other microbial fermentation processes.Key words: Pomelo pericarp powder, orthogonal matrix method, naringinase, culture medium optimization, Aspergillus oryzae JMU316

Improved keratinase production for feather degradation by Bacillus licheniformis ZJUEL31410 in submerged cultivation

Optimal medium was used to improve the production of keratinase by Bacillus licheniformis ZJUEL31410, which has a promising application in the transformation of feather into soluble protein. The results of single factor design revealed that the concentration of feather at 20 g/l and the initial pH at value 8 was the best for the production of keratinase and the degradation of feather. Ammonia salt and nitrate salt strongly restricted the production of keratinase and the degradation of feather. Result of Box-Behnken design (BBD) experiment which was used to optimize concentrations of glucose, corn steep flour and K2HPO4 for further improvement of keratinase productivity showed that the optimal medium was composed of glucose (20 g/l), corn steep flour (7.5 g/l), K2HPO4 (1 g/l) and feather (20 g/l). The result of submerged batch cultivation of B. licheniformis ZJUEL31410 in the 5 L fermentor indicated that the optimal medium had the highest keratinase and the degree of feather degradation (DFD) at 54.9 U/ml and 72.4%; both were 5 times more than the basal medium. The degradation of feather was verified by the analysis of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This study provides a foundation for the production of keratinase and the conversion of feather to soluble protein through submerged fermentation process by B. licheniformis ZJUEL31410.Key words: Bacillus licheniformis ZJUEL31410, keratinase, culture medium, optimization, Box-Behnken design, scanning electron microscopy, feather degradation

Accommodation-Free Head Mounted Display with Comfortable 3D Perception and an Enlarged Eye-box.

An accommodation-free displays, also known as Maxwellian displays, keep the displayed image sharp regardless of the viewer's focal distance. However, they typically suffer from a small eye-box and limited effective field of view (FOV) which requires careful alignment before a viewer can see the image. This paper presents a high-quality accommodation-free head mounted display (aHMD) based on pixel beam scanning for direct image forming on retina. It has an enlarged eye-box and FOV for easy viewing by replicating the viewing points with an array of beam splitters. A prototype aHMD is built using this concept, which shows high definition, low colour aberration 3D augmented reality (AR) images with an FOV of 36°. The advantage of the proposed design over other head mounted display (HMD) architectures is that, due to the narrow, collimated pixel beams, the high image quality is unaffected by changes in eye accommodation, and the approach to enlarge the eye-box is scalable. Most importantly, such an aHMD can deliver realistic three-dimensional (3D) viewing perception with no vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC). It is found that viewing the accommodation-free 3D images with the aHMD presented in this work is comfortable for viewers and does not cause the nausea or eyestrain side effects commonly associated with conventional stereoscopic 3D or HMD displays, even for all day use

Abrasive water jet drilling of advanced sustainable bio-fibre-reinforced polymer/hybrid composites : a comprehensive analysis of machining-induced damage responses

This paper aims at investigating the effects of variable traverse speeds on machining-induced damage of fibre-reinforced composites, using the abrasive water jet (AWJ) drilling. Three different types of epoxy-based composites laminates fabricated by vacuum bagging technique containing unidirectional (UD) flax, hybrid carbon-flax and carbon fibre-reinforced composite were used. The drilling parameters used were traverse speeds of 20, 40, 60 and 80 mm/min, constant water jet pressure of 300 MPa and a hole diameter of 10 mm. The results obtained depict that the traverse speed had a significant effect with respect to both surface roughness and delamination drilling-induced damage responses. Evidently, an increase in water jet traverse speed caused an increase in both damage responses of the three samples. Significantly, the CFRP composite sample recorded the lowest surface roughness damage response, followed by C-FFRP, while FFRP exhibited the highest. However, samples of FFRP and hybrid C-FFRP recorded lowest and highest delamination damage responses, respectively. The discrepancy in both damage responses, as further validated with micrographs of colour video microscopy (CVM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray micro-computed tomography (X-ray μCT), is attributed to the different mechanical properties of the reinforced fibres, fibre orientation/ply stacking and hybridisation of the samples.Peer reviewe

Biodiversity and Biogeography of Chthamalid Barnacles from the North-Eastern Pacific (Crustacea Cirripedia)

The biogeography and ecology of the species of Chthamalus present on the west coast of America are described, using data from 51 localities from Alaska to Panama, together with their zonation on the shore with respect to that of other barnacles. The species present were C. dalli, Pilsbry 1916, C. fissus, Darwin, 1854, C. anisopoma Pilsbry 1916 and four species in the C. panamensis complex. The latter are C. panamensis Pilsbry, 1916, C. hedgecocki, Pitombo & Burton, 2007, C. alani nom. nov. (formerly C. southwardorum Pitombo & Burton, 2007) and C. newmani sp. nov.). These four species were initially separated by enzyme electrophoresis. They could only be partially separated by DNA bar coding but may be separated using morphological characters

Dual-gated bilayer graphene hot electron bolometer

Detection of infrared light is central to diverse applications in security, medicine, astronomy, materials science, and biology. Often different materials and detection mechanisms are employed to optimize performance in different spectral ranges. Graphene is a unique material with strong, nearly frequency-independent light-matter interaction from far infrared to ultraviolet, with potential for broadband photonics applications. Moreover, graphene's small electron-phonon coupling suggests that hot-electron effects may be exploited at relatively high temperatures for fast and highly sensitive detectors in which light energy heats only the small-specific-heat electronic system. Here we demonstrate such a hot-electron bolometer using bilayer graphene that is dual-gated to create a tunable bandgap and electron-temperature-dependent conductivity. The measured large electron-phonon heat resistance is in good agreement with theoretical estimates in magnitude and temperature dependence, and enables our graphene bolometer operating at a temperature of 5 K to have a low noise equivalent power (33 fW/Hz1/2). We employ a pump-probe technique to directly measure the intrinsic speed of our device, >1 GHz at 10 K.Comment: 5 figure