Microalgae: A Promising, Yet Challenging, Source of Sustainable Omega-3 PUFAs

Humans need omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), especially eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Despite being involved in many functions such as cell signaling, anti-inflammatory reactions, and more, the body can only synthesize them in a small amount, which makes them semi-essential in this manner. Furthermore, the sustainability of these traditional sources, like fish oil raises questions as the increasing world population leads to a greater demand. Microscopic water creatures known as microalgae provide potential as a sustainable substitution, as they are naturally able to produce DHA and EPA, which can be used for an efficient supply of these fatty acids. The kingdom of microalgae is incredibly diverse. Certain species, such as Crypthecodinium and Nannochloropsis, are acknowledged leaders in the production and accumulation of PUFAs. It is important to study this biodiversity and choose strains with high PUFA content in order to maximize yield. Some efforts are needed to obtain microalgal oil. There are a range of culture techniques, such as phototrophic cultivation (using sunlight), heterotrophic cultivation (using organic materials), and mixotrophic cultivation (using both). The processes of harvesting and drying microalgae are also important, as well as methods of cell disruption for effective lipid extraction and purification to produce an oil with a higher ratio of PUFA. The production of PUFAs in microalgae is influenced by the surrounding environment. Factors such as the availability of vital nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), environmental pH and salinity of the environment, the delicate balance of temperature, light intensity, and wavelength, and the effect of CO2 concentration are briefly examined in this thesis. Microalgae have significant potential, and there are opportunities for development, such as manipulating cultivation factors to increase PUFA content. Production costs are one of the challenges in scaling up microalgal oil manufacturing. Nevertheless, the researchers show a positive picture while acknowledging these difficulties. These challenges may be solved by further studies and advancements in culture techniques, opening the door to producing a cheaper and more sustainable PUFA from microalgae. This study intends to create a better understanding of production and affecting factors for the production of PUFAs (particularly EPA and DHA) by microalgae. This may also help to give an outlook of microalgae as a new potential source of PUFAs, which can play a major role in enhancing human health in the future

Regularity of a degenerate oblique derivative problem

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Data Analytics for Digital Entrepreneurship: A Case Study on Airbnb

This project focuses on Airbnb, a peer-to-peer businesss, and analyzes how a micro-entrepreneur can use the features and affordances of these online platforms to improve their image and potential profit

Teaching Analytics: A Demonstration of Association Discovery with SAS Enterprise Miner

In the current age of data analytics, there has been a push for the emergence of technologies that allow for interactive analysis of extensive amounts of quickly produced, highly varied data. These technologies require people (nicknamed “data scientists”) from many business disciplines who are capable of managing and analyzing this data for use in decision making processes. In order to educate and train more of these people, there has been an increase in the teaching of analytical tools in both Management Information Systems (MIS) and Business Analytics (BA) programs. This article will describe details of an exercise on business analytics specially tailored for the Introduction to MIS or BA course. The main goal for this project is to educate first year business students about the importance and usefulness of data analytics without discouraging them with excessive coverage of technical software details

Actuarial applications of multivariate phase-type distributions : model calibration and credibility

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The effects of Asian Red Ginseng ethanolic extract on serum concentration of leptin hormone in male wistar rat

Background and aims: Leptin is a hormone known to control appetite and body weight. The leptin Levels in obese animals are always more than animals with normal size. A wide variety of methods have been offered to treat obesity of which herbal therapy is considered as one of these methods. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ethanolic extract of Asian Red Ginseng on leptin serum level in male wistar rats. Methods: In this “in vitro” experimental study, 30 adult male wistar rats were randomly divided into 5 groups equally: control (no drug), SHAM (received 1ml of physiology serrum), Interventional group 1 (received 20mg/kg ethanolic extract of Asian red ginseng), Interventional group 2 (received 40mg/kg) and Interventional group 3 (receiver 80mg/kg). The extract was injected intraperitoneally for 20 days. On the twentieth day, blood samples were collected. Dataset of experiments were collected and analyzed with Graphpad Prism 5 software. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and PResults: The dose-dependent injection of the ethanolic extract of Asain Red Ginseng root did not show a significant effect on leptin hormone serum level, but it showed a significant decrease in food intake compared to the control group. Conclusion: The ethanolic extract of Asian red ginseng root does not reduce the serum level of leptin hormone

New Trends in Biologically-Inspired Audio Coding

This book chapter deals with the generation of auditory-inspired spectro-temporal features aimed at audio coding. To do so, we first generate sparse audio representations we call spikegrams, using projections on gammatone or gammachirp kernels that generate neural spikes. Unlike Fourier-based representations, these representations are powerful at identifying auditory events, such as onsets, offsets, transients and harmonic structures. We show that the introduction of adaptiveness in the selection of gammachirp kernels enhances the compression rate compared to the case where the kernels are non-adaptive. We also integrate a masking model that helps reduce bitrate without loss of perceptible audio quality. We then quantize coding values using the genetic algorithm that is more optimal than uniform quantization for this framework. We finally propose a method to extract frequent auditory objects (patterns) in the aforementioned sparse representations. The extracted frequency-domain patterns (auditory objects) help us address spikes (auditory events) collectively rather than individually. When audio compression is needed, the different patterns are stored in a small codebook that can be used to efficiently encode audio materials in a lossless way. The approach is applied to different audio signals and results are discussed and compared. This work is a first step towards the design of a high-quality auditory-inspired \"object-based\" audio coder

USF binding sequences from the HS4 insulator element impose early replication timing on a vertebrate replicator

The nuclear genomes of vertebrates show a highly organized program of DNA replication where GC-rich isochores are replicated early in S-phase, while AT-rich isochores are late replicating. GC-rich regions are gene dense and are enriched for active transcription, suggesting a connection between gene regulation and replication timing. Insulator elements can organize independent domains of gene transcription and are suitable candidates for being key regulators of replication timing. We have tested the impact of inserting a strong replication origin flanked by the β-globin HS4 insulator on the replication timing of naturally late replicating regions in two different avian cell types, DT40 (lymphoid) and 6C2 (erythroid). We find that the HS4 insulator has the capacity to impose a shift to earlier replication. This shift requires the presence of HS4 on both sides of the replication origin and results in an advance of replication timing of the target locus from the second half of S-phase to the first half when a transcribed gene is positioned nearby. Moreover, we find that the USF transcription factor binding site is the key cis-element inside the HS4 insulator that controls replication timing. Taken together, our data identify a combination of cis-elements that might constitute the basic unit of multi-replicon megabase-sized early domains of DNA replication