Lipid content and biomass analysis in autotrophic and heterotrophic algal species

Biofuels are a form of renewable energy derived from living matter, typically plants. The push for biofuels began in order to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere, as biofuels are essentially carbon neutral. The idea is the same amount of CO2 the plants took in to perform photosynthesis will then be released in the burning of the biofuels. Algae is an excellent source of biofuels because it grows quickly and is versatile in terms of the type of fuel it can produce. The two most common mechanisms for algae growth are heterotrophic or photoautotrophic. Heterotrophically grown algae uses an exogenous energy source, such as glucose, and uses the energy stored in it to perform cellular functions. Glucose also serves as a source of carbon and hydrogen, which are the primary elements found in lipids. In addition heterotrophic algae requires other nutrients for survival, such as water, vitamins, and inorganic ions. Algae grown photoautotrophically uses pigments in cellular photoreceptors to convert energy from light into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy source, and to produce glucose. It also requires water, vitamins, and inorganic ions like the heterotrophic algae does. Some algal species, such as Chlorella zofingiensis, can be grown both photoautotrophically and heterotrophically. This algae species will be the subject of our experiment. Our experiment seeks to discover the most efficient way of growing algae to produce the highest amount of lipids. In addition to serving as a key component of cell and organelle membranes, lipids are a common form of high efficiency, long-term energy storage for living organisms, which is why lipids are extracted and processed to form biofuels. We propose growing one species of algae photoautotrophically by providing it with proper amounts of light but eliminating any glucose available. We will also grow the same species heterotrophically, with exogenous access to glucose, but eliminating all exposure to light sources. Finally, we will grow the same species mixotrophically with access to both glucose and light. Once the algae is grown, it will be harvested and analyzed for its lipid profile to determine which algae sample has the highest percent lipid content. We will also measure the percent biomass of each sample to determine which primary energy source leads to the greatest amount of total algal growth, percent organic material, and percent lipid content. We predict the algae grown with access to both sunlight and exogenous glucose will produce both the highest lipid content and the highest percent of biomass

Kan In Don Nah (All Are Welcome Here): A Framework for Developing Intercultural Worship Practice at First Chin Baptist Church of New Bern, North Carolina

The process of intercultural ministry across human boundaries is modeled throughout the ministry of Jesus Christ. Regardless of culture, the scriptures actively engage understanding of God’s Word for all the people and His love to reach each one. This project sought to encourage a biblical understanding of intercultural discipleship by guiding the worshiping community of First Chin Baptist Church through a four-week ministry project to welcome and worship with non-Chin guests. Through a series of study on John 21:1-17, the community discovered a new biblical and theological foundation for understanding and guiding non-Chin guests before, during, and after worship to develop a framework for intercultural worship practices at First Chin Baptist Church

Comparison of Selected Simple Models of Inflation in the Czech Economy

This paper begins with a description of simple select models of inflation and their ability to fit the data. The paper in turn measures the stability of particular parsimonious models. One-step forecast tests are applied, which establish the instability of the money demand model compared with other models, despite its ability to fit the data nearly as well as the P-star model. Further, the forecasting performances of the selected parsimonious models are analyzed, though only the performance of one-step forecasts are fully treated given the insufficient descriptive ability of the AR processes of explanatory variables. As a measure of forecast ability, the author employs U-statistic, RMSE, and MAE tests. The above statistics assign the best-forecast performance to the modified version of the P-star model of inflation for a small, open economy.inflation; traditional monetary model; Phillips model; Portfolio model; P-star model; forecasting performance

Seismicity from february 2006 to september 2007 at the Rwenzori Mountains, East African Rift: earthquake distribution, magnitudes and source mechanisms

We have analysed the microseismic activity within the Rwenzori Mountains area in the western branch of the East African Rift. Seismogram recordings from a temporary array of up to 27 stations reveal approximately 800 events per month with local magnitudes ranging from –0.5 to 5.1. The earthquake distribution is highly heterogeneous. The majority of located events lie within faults zones to the east and west of the Rwenzoris with the highest seismic activity observed in the northeastern area, where the mountains are in contact with the rift shoulders. The hypocentral depth distribution exhibits a pronounced peak of seismic energy release at 15 km depth. The maximum extent of seismicity ranges from 20 to 32 km and correlates well with Moho depths that were derived from teleseismic receiver functions. We observe two general features: (i) beneath the rift shoulders, seismicity extends from the surface down to ca. 30 km depth; (ii) beneath the rift valley, seismicity is confined to depths greater than 10 km. From the observations there is no indication for a crustal root beneath the Rwenzori Mountains. The magnitude frequency distribution reveals a b-value of 1.1, which is consistent with the hypothesis that part of the seismicity is caused by magmatic processes within the crust. Fault plane solutions of 304 events were derived from P-polarities and SV/P amplitude ratios. More than 70 % of the source mechanisms exhibit pure or predominantly normal faulting. T-axis trends are highly uniform and oriented WNW–ESE, which is perpendicular to the rift axis and in good agreement with kinematic rift models. At the northernmost part of the region we observe a rotation of the T-axis trends to NEN–SWS, which may be indicative of a local perturbation of the regional stress field

Stationarity and Memory of ARCH Models

Sufficient conditions for strict stationarity of ARCH(8) are established, without imposing covariance stationarity and for any specification of the conditional second moment coefficients. GARCH(p,q) as well as the case of hyperbolically decaying coefficients are included, such as the autoregressive coefficients of ARFIMA(p,d,q), once the non-negativity constraints are imposed. Second, we show the necessary and sufficient conditions for covariance stationarity of ARCH(8), both for the levels and the squares. These prove to be much stronger than the strict stationarity conditions. The covariance stationarity condition for the levels rules out long memory in the squares.ARCH(8), GARCH(p,q), nonlinear moving average representation, strict and weak stationarity, memory.

Educational gains in cause-specific mortality : Accounting for cognitive ability and family-level confounders using propensity score weighting

A negative educational gradient has been found for many causes of death. This association may be partly explained by confounding factors that affect both educational attainment and mortality. We correct the cause-specific educational gradient for observed individual background and unobserved family factors using an innovative method based on months lost due to a specific cause of death re-weighted by the probability of attaining a higher educational level. We use data on men with brothers from the Swedish Military Conscription Registry (1951-1983), linked to administrative registers. This dataset of some 700,000 men allows us to distinguish between five education levels and many causes of death. The empirical results reveal that raising the educational level from primary to tertiary would result in an additional 20 months of survival between ages 18 and 63. This improvement in mortality is mainly attributable to fewer deaths from external causes. The highly educated gain more than nine months due to the reduction in deaths from external causes, but gain only two months due to the reduction in cancer mortality and four months due to the reduction in cardiovascular mortality. Ignoring confounding would lead to an underestimation of the gains by educational attainment, especially for the less educated. Our results imply that if the education distribution of 50,000 Swedish men from the 1951 cohort were replaced with that of the corresponding 1983 cohort, 22% of the person-years that were lost to death between ages 18 and 63 would have been saved for this cohort. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe