INDUCTION OF CELLULASE IN HIGH SOLIDS CULTIVATION OF \u3cem\u3eTRICHODERMA REESEI\u3c/em\u3e FOR ENHANCED ENZYMATIC HYDROLYSIS OF LIGNOCELLULOSE

This project aimed investigated cellulase in-situ production for large-scale on-farm production of lignocellulosic biofuel. Cellulase activity and glucose released by T. reesei with corn stover and wheat bran as co-substrates for solid state cultivation (SSC) were examined. Co-cultivation has previously increased T. reesei cellulase, but corn stover and wheat bran have not been co-cultivated (Dhillon, Oberoi et al. 2011). This work compared cellulase activity and glucose concentration of corn stover co-cultivated with 0-40% wheat bran in high solids. Samples with at least 20% wheat bran exhibited increased cellulase activity. However, the average glucose concentration without wheat bran was 3.29 g/L compared to 16.7 g/L with wheat bran. Glucose released by T. reesei on pretreated corn stover with 0-40% wheat bran was compared at the optimal temperatures for fungal growth and for cellulase activity after SSC. Previous research has rarely used cellulase from SSC to hydrolyze lignocellulose. Following SSC of T. reesei at 30°C for seven days, samples were warmed to 50°C for five days. Glucose concentration increased to 12.1 and 32.7 g/L for samples with and without wheat bran. This strategy could reduce lignocellulosic fuel production costs by eliminating need for commercial cellulase and is promising for efficient cellulose hydrolysis

The "Adaptive Management" of a New Nature along the Southern English Coastline

This article explores the tensions between different understandings about how best to manage a stretch of coastline that is threatened by a new piece of land that emerged out of the sea. It looks at the kinds of political worlds this environmental change has engendered and the dynamic shaping of people and places through such change. It argues that in managing the edges of the sea and land in this area, people also forge themselves as new kinds of subjects in a political landscape that is shifting and changing. Contrasting views about how best to manage these changes illuminate the politics of how best to adapt and manage different environments and the people who shape and are shaped by them

My liminal life: Perpetual journeys across the research-practice divide

I develop the theme of liminality to interpret my ongoing journeys across the researchpractice divide. My intention is to encourage you to make that journey and to help you avoid the mistakes I have made. I chronicle the creation and evolution of my research centre, the Centre for Professional Service Firms at Cass Business School. I analyse the serious difficulties associated with engaging with practitioners in the current academic environment and explain how the Centre has achieved considerable success in spite of these difficulties. I go on to describe the insights and experiences I have gained from my most powerful experience of impact to date. I conclude by outlining the personal rules I now attempt to live by when engaging with practitioners, to help other academics minimise the difficulties and maximise the opportunities that will arise through these interactions

Ambiguous authority and hidden hierarchy: Collective leadership in a professional service firm

This study represents a detailed analysis of collective leadership, examining the distinctive power dynamics revealed among professional peers as they attempt to act decisively in response to an acute organizational crisis. It identifies how professional peers deliberately construct and amplify ambiguity in both the composition and authority of their collective leadership group, and examines how that ambiguity can serve a functional purpose for group members. Intuitive mutual adjustment is the prevailing pattern of interaction, but this changes to a more managed form of mutual adjustment as a hidden hierarchy is revealed in response to the crisis. The study identifies the micro interactions which constitute both intuitive and managed mutual adjustment, and shows how members of a collective leadership group can maintain cohesion and act decisively, in spite of lacking the formal authority to do so. The findings challenge some foundational assumptions of collective leadership theory and extend our understanding of leadership power dynamics more generally by: demonstrating how leaders can exercise considerable informal power under the cloak of ambiguity, highlighting the hidden hierarchy that can exist within a collective, and emphasising the significance of the individual ‘heroic’ leader within collective leadership

Subjective Lives and Economic Transformations in Mongolia: Life in the Gap

Almost 10 years ago the mineral-rich country of Mongolia experienced very rapid economic growth, fuelled by China’s need for coal and copper. New subjects, buildings, and businesses flourished, and future dreams were imagined and hoped for. This period of growth is, however, now over. Mongolia is instead facing high levels of public and private debt, conflicts over land and sovereignty, and a changed political climate that threatens its fragile democratic institutions. Subjective Lives and Economic Transformations in Mongolia details this complex story through the intimate lives of five women. Building on long-term friendships, which span over 20 years, Rebecca documents their personal journeys in an ever-shifting landscape. She reveals how these women use experiences of living a ‘life in the gap’ to survive the hard reality between desired outcomes and their actual daily lives. In doing so, she offers a completely different picture from that presented by economists and statisticians of what it is like to live in this fluctuating extractive economy

Africa [9th grade]

Students will focus on colonialism in Africa. The focus will be on natural resources and the geographic location of Africa and how these two factors led to European colonization of Africa. The unit will then move on to explain how the colonization and exploitation of Africa led to the cycle of poverty in which Africa is currently embedded. Students will use their knowledge of Africa to participate in a simulation. Students will be assigned a specific country in Africa to research. Students will also research the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and determine how these goals have affected Africa

Whose fault is history? [7th grade]

In this unit students will learn about the events that culminated in the beginning of the Texas Revolution. Students will study specific legislative acts by the Mexican government and discover how these acts, which placed restrictions on activity in Texas, pushed many Texans to rebellion. They will then analyze these events and try to understand how historical figures in both Mexico and Texas would have viewed these legislative acts. The final performance assessment will require students to study a current conflict and the events that led up to that conflict. Students must then decide which side they would support in the conflict

Claiming Resources, Honouring Debts: The Cosmoeconomics of Mongolia's Mineral Economy

What happens to the relations involved in ownership when faced with new claims and challenges? This article looks at three examples of the way in which Mongolians are managing claims to resources and responding to new regimes of ownership. In each case, recourse to models of ownership based on masters and custodians are marshalled and extended to suit new contexts. I suggest that these should not be viewed as modern responses to the inequalities of current economic and social life [cf. Comaroff and Comaroff. 1999, May. Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony. American Ethnologist, 26(2): 279–303], nor should they be viewed as a historical remnant from some previous social life. Rather, and here I follow Tsing [2004. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2015a. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2015b. Salvage Accumulation, or the Structural Effects of Capitalist Generativity. In Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology Website, March 30, 2015. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/656-salvage-accumulation-or-the-structural-effects-of-capitalist-generativity], they may be viewed as an outcome of an innovative ‘friction’, or ‘salvage economy’, between global and local realities that gives rise to what Gibson-Graham [2006. A Postcapitalist Politics. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press] argues is a heterogeneous capitalist landscape, here manifested in Mongolia’s dramatically rising and falling mineral economy

On the idea of Learning Trajectories: Promises and Pitfalls

Learning mathematics is a complex and multidimensional if not an inherently indeterminate process. A necessary goal of research on learning is to simplify this complexity without sacrificing the ability of research to inform teaching. This goal has been addressed in part by researchers focusing on how to represent research on learning for teachers and on how to support teachers to use and generate models of students’ learning (e.g., Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, et al., 2001; Hammer & Schifter, 2001; Simon & Tzur, 2004; Steffe, 2004). Recently, the idea of learning trajectories has gained attention as a way to focus research on learning in service of instruction and assessment. It is influencing curriculum standards, assessment design, and funding priorities. In this paper – which grew out of my response to Michael Battista’s keynote address on learning trajectories at the last annual meeting of the North American chapter of Psychology in Mathematics Education (Battista, 2010) – I examine the idea of learning trajectories and speculate on its usefulness in mathematics education