Automation in Leather Making

Content: In most of the tanneries, water and chemicals are added manually in the tanning drum and pH of the float / leather is adjusted. Addition of correct amount of process recipe are necessary for better processing of the hides and minimizing wastage of utility, thereby controlling pollution load in effluent. However, fugitive-emission from process and drains accumulate ammonia, hydrogen-sulphide and volatile organic compounds which contribute bad odor in tannery as well as in wastewater-treatment premises causing problems to occupational health & safety of workers. Both local and supervisory control stations are employed to monitor and accurately manage the unit operations. The objective of this work is to produce consistent quality of leathers and to provide a healthy environment through automatic dosing and odor abatement system. Therefore the entire process control operation is integrated to operate through PLCs with following five modules: i) Water addition module ii) Chemical preparation and dosing system iii) pH monitoring and float recycle system iv) Drum rotation module v) Odor reduction module. In the integrated system, critical and bulk chemicals are stored in bulk storage tanks and are drawn into the load cell (LC) as per process sequence or recipe for feeding into the drums through auxiliary tanks. The float-recycle system helps to remix & heat the float where a pH electrode is housed to monitor pH online. The pH monitoring system adjusts addition of critical chemicals that indicates automatic end point. The contaminated air inside the tannery is sucked and passed through blower and then through bio-filter. The filtration process is based on the principle that VOCs (in the order of 50-200 ppm) and odors can be biologically treated by naturally occurring microbes. The control parameters monitored are: moisture in the bed and uniformity of media (contaminated air or process liquor). The humidity and temperature of inlet media is controlled and contact time with microbes is 10-30 secs. Moisture is controlled to maintain microbial population. A lead in laboratory scale has been developed to measure process variables (PV) considering their spatial distribution in two dimensions. Spatial distribution of process variables inside hides (across cross section) may provide accurate measurement of through reconstruction of image and data driven models using artificial intelligence tools. Computational intelligence is developed for updation of model parameters as that can be used for direct estimation of PV Take-Away: 1. Cleaner production is provided through automation of dosing & pH monitoring using PLC in indegeneous way 2. Pollution Load in exit stream and odor-gas emmision are minimized 3. Artificial Intelligence and data analytics techniques are used in Leather makin

Genetic analysis on three South Indian sympatric hipposiderid bats (Chiroptera, Hipposideridae)

In mitochondrial DNA, variations in the sequence of 16S rRNA region were analyzed to infer the genetic relationship and population history of three sympatric hipposiderid bats, Hipposideros speoris, H. fulvus and H. ater. Based on the DNA sequence data, we observed relatively lower haplotype and higher nucleotide diversity in H. speoris than in the other two species. The pairwise comparisons of the genetic divergence inferred a genetic relationship between the three hipposiderid bats. We used haplotype sequences to construct a phylogenetic tree. Maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference analysis generated a tree with similar topology. H. fulvus and H. ater formed one cluster and H. speoris formed another cluster. Analysis of the demographic history of populations using Jajima’s D test revealed past changes in populations. Comparison of the observed distribution of pairwise differences in the nucleotides with expected sudden expansion model accepts for H. fulvus and H. ater but not for H. speoris populations

A Protein based Polymeric Syntan from Leather Waste: Retanning agent for Sustainable Leather Processing

Content: A copolymer has been synthesized from leather waste and monomer and its application has been studied for improved exhaustion in tanning and post-tanning processes. After synthesizing, the product has been analyzed and found to have particle size of 810 nm, pH of 4.0, relative viscosity of 0.8872 cp, polydispersity index (Mw/Mn) of 0.555 and percent solid as 23%. The weakly anionic character of the copolymer is supported by zeta potential of –0.0403 mV. The stability of the particle was also studied using TGA, DSC. Functional groups of the polymer was analyzed by FT-IR which revealed the presence of carboxylic acid, amide I & II, hydroxyl groups and ester groups in the product. The product can be used for increasing exhaustion and leather-properties in chrome tanning and post-tanning processes. It improves belly filling, provides fullness, softness and dye exhaustion in post-tanning process. It also shows better fullness and body in chrome tanning processes. The color properties found to be better and strength properties were comparable in experimental leather as compared to conventionally produced leather. This product can be applicable for manufacturing different types of leather where fullness and tightness are necessary. The present process helps in mitigating pollution problem of liquid and solid wastes of leather industry. A cost benefit analysis shows that the process is feasible for up-scaling. Take-Away: Synthesis of Co-Polymer from Leather Waste Application of Co-polymer as retanning agent Improved Exhaustion & Organoleptic Properties of leathe

Effect of salinity stress on carbohydrate, lipid peroxidation and proline contents of two horse gram [Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc] varieties

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of different concentrations (0, 40, 80 and 120mM) of salinity on horse gram [Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc] plants grown in pots. The two horse gram varieties PAIYUR-2 and CO-1 were used for the study. Sampling was done on 15th Days After Treatment (DAT) and 30th DAT from control and salinity treated plants. The response of the horse gram plants to salinity stress was analysed by estimating the levels of carbohydrates, starch, lipid peroxidation, proline and glycine betaine. Higher salinity markedly reduced sugar concentration in both horsegram varieties, while starch content showed reverse trend. Lipid peroxidation (estimated by MDA content) significantly increased under salinity in both varieties but the rate of increment was higher in CO-1. The concentration of proline and glycine betaine were also altered under salinity. From the results of this investigation, it may be concluded that plants of variety PAIYUR-2 have high adaptive potential under salinity when compared to variety CO-1

Salt Stress induced changes in growth, pigments and protein contents in two horse gram [Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc] varieties

Growth parameters and photosynthetic pigments changes in horse gram were investigated under salinity of different concentrations (0, 40, 80. 120mM). The two horse gram varieties Paiyur-2 and CO-1 were sampling was done in young and fully matured leaves were taken from control and salinity treated plants on 15th Days After Treatment (DAT) and 30th DAT. Treatments were planted in pots.  Growth parameters such as plant height, lea area, fresh and dry weight of the whole plants decreased in both varieties under salinity stressed condition. Photosynthetic pigments such as total chlorophyll, chlorophyll ‘a’ chlorophyll ‘b’ were significantly reduced in the salinity stressed leaves. Quantitative differences with response to salinity. Were also noticed in the content of soluble protein in two horse gram varieties. Our data revealed that Paiyur-2 maintained lower reduction of growth and higher contents of photosynthetic pigments as well as soluble protein content when compared to variety CO-1 during the adverse effect of salinity stress

The conserved C-terminus of the PcrA/UvrD helicase interacts directly with RNA polymerase

Copyright: © 2013 Gwynn et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust project grant to MD (Reference: 077368), an ERC starting grant to MD (Acronym: SM-DNA-REPAIR) and a BBSRC project grant to PM, NS and MD (Reference: BB/I003142/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Design of agile supply chains including analysing the trade-off between number of partners and reliability

The reliability of supply partners is particularly vital in agile supply chains as it is vulnerable to the inability of a supply partner to meet its high responsiveness and flexibility requirements resulting in the disruption of the whole network. Disruption can have expensive and extensive results for the entire agile supply chain. To mitigate the risk of disruption and improve the reliability of the whole agile supply chain, decision-makers need to pay more attention to supply chain design and construction, whilst simultaneously taking into account the sourcing strategy decisions. This paper proposes a series of models for the design of agile supply chains using dynamic programming modelling. These provide decision-makers with a systematic way of analysing one of the key decisions of sourcing strategy, namely the trade-off between the number of supply partners and reliability. The efficacy of the models is demonstrated through their application to a Chinese bus and coach manufacturer by way of an empirical illustration. The results show that this approach is effective for this application and it can be applied in other related decision-making scenarios. The methods offered in this paper provide managers with a practical tool to design their agile supply chains while considering the trade-offs between the number of partners and the reliability of the entire agile supply chain

Prion-like domain mutations in hnRNPs cause multisystem proteinopathy and ALS

Summary Algorithms designed to identify canonical yeast prions predict that ~250 human proteins, including several RNA-binding proteins associated with neurodegenerative disease, harbor a distinctive prion-like domain (PrLD) enriched in uncharged polar amino acids and glycine. PrLDs in RNA-binding proteins are essential for the assembly of ribonucleoprotein granules. However, the interplay between human PrLD function and disease is not understood. Here, we define pathogenic mutations in PrLDs of hnRNPA2/B1 and hnRNPA1 in families with inherited degeneration affecting muscle, brain, motor neuron and bone, and a case of familial ALS. Wild-type hnRNPA2 and hnRNPA1 display an intrinsic tendency to assemble into self-seeding fibrils, which is exacerbated by the disease mutations. Indeed, the pathogenic mutations strengthen a ‘steric zipper’ motif in the PrLD, which accelerates formation of self-seeding fibrils that cross-seed polymerization of wild-type hnRNP. Importantly, the disease mutations promote excess incorporation of hnRNPA2 and hnRNPA1 into stress granules and drive the formation of cytoplasmic inclusions in animal models that recapitulate the human pathology. Thus, dysregulated polymerization caused by a potent mutant ‘steric zipper’ motif in a PrLD can initiate degenerative disease. Related proteins with PrLDs must be considered candidates for initiating and perhaps propagating proteinopathies of muscle, brain, motor neuron and bone