Application and Conversion of Soybean Hulls

Soybean is one of the most cultivated crops in the world, with a global production of approximately 240 million tons, generating about 18–20 million tons of hulls, the major by-product of soy industry. The chemical composition of soybean hulls depends on the efficiency of the dehulling process, and so, the soybean hulls may contain variable amounts of cellulose (29–51%), hemicelluloses (10–25%), lignin (1–4%), pectins (4–8%), proteins (11–15%), and minor extractives. This chapter provides a review on the composition and structure of soybean hulls, especially in regard to the application and conversion of the compositions. Current applications of soybean hulls are utilizations to animal feed, treatment of wastewater, dietary fiber, and herbal medicine. The conversion of soybean hulls is concerned with ethanol production, bio-oil, polysaccharides, microfibrils, peroxidase, and oligopeptides. On the basis of the relevant findings, we recommend the use of soybean hulls as important source on environment, energy, animal breeding, materials, chemicals, medicine, and food

A VOC Based Approach to Support Virtual Organizations

Employing IT as the key enable technology, virtual organization (VO) is primarily characterized as being a network of independent, geographically dispersed organizations (member organization) providing electronic services via Internet. To align these services effectively, one of the main challenges is to model cooperation in VO and provide correspondent management tools. Here we present a VOC (VO Structure-Organization Resource-Character) approach to model and run VO. VOC consists of three models. VO Structure model describes how VO functions in terms of VO Role (VR), Protocol; Organization Resource model describes potential service providers (potential member organization) capable participate VO. Character Model describes dynamic binding relationship between VO role and member organization. Following the VOC model，a platform supporting the design, administration, and running of VOC is given

Recurrent Syncope Attributed to Left Main Coronary Artery Severe Stenosis

Patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) rarely manifest as recurrent syncope due to malignant ventricular arrhythmia. We report a case of a 56-year-old Chinese male with complaints of paroxysmal chest burning sensation and distress for 2 weeks as well as loss of consciousness for 3 days. The electrocardiogram (ECG) revealed paroxysmal multimorphologic ventricular tachycardia during attack and normal heart rhythm during intervals. Coronary angiograph showed 90% stenosis in left main coronary artery and 80% stenosis in anterior descending artery. Two stents sized 4.0*18 mm and 2.75*18 mm were placed at left main coronary artery and anterior descending artery, respectively, during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The patient was discharged and never had ventricular arrhythmia again during a 3-month follow-up since the PCI. This indicated that ventricular tachycardia was correlated with persistent severe myocardial ischemia. Coronary vasospasm was highly suspected to be the reason of the sudden attack and acute exacerbation. PCI is recommended in patients with both severe coronary artery stenosis and ventricular arrhythmia. Removing myocardial ischemia may stop or relieve ventricular arrhythmia and prevent cardiac arrest