Strain Improvement of an Endophytic Fungal spp. for Biodiesel Production .

The Aspergillus niger JGK – 12 was subjected to mutation through physical and chemical methods (UV and EMS), and after treatment, the putative survived cultures were subjected to quantitative production of biomass and total lipid yield. Compared to control culture of Aspergillus niger JGK-12, UV treated mutant showed little enhancement in dry biomass content and total lipid production, whereas the EMS treated culture did not produce high biomass and lipid contents. The isolated lipids were then subjected to purification in which case, neutral lipids were found to be the major components accounting up to 85% of the total lipids, which infers that Aspergillus niger JGK – 12 could be a good microbial source for biodiesel production. The fractionated lipids were subjected to alkaline transesterification to produce biodiesel, which are mainly composed of fatty acid methyl esters and the compositions were found to be similar to that of regular biodiesel from plant origin. The biodiesel were further analyzed by GC-MS, HPTLC, 1H NMR, C13 NMR and FTIR techniques to confirm their purity and quality. Hence, with all the research findings, it can be concluded that Aspergillus niger JGK – 12 can be treated as a promising feedstock for biodiesel production in the futur

Growing of Chlorella, Scenedesmus and Botryococus in sewage water for biodiesel production

Algae grown on wastewater media are a potential source of low-​cost lipids for prodn. of liq. biofuels. This study was aimed to est. the effect of Physico-​chem. characteristics of normal and sewage water (pH 7.60 and 6.60, EC 15.97 and 12.36 μmol, free Co2 1.48 and 0.74, nitrogen 0.90 and 0.50 mg​/l, potassium 168.11 and 54.63 mg​/l, calcium 249.52 and 112.21 mg​/l, magnesium 104.91 and 51.19 mg​/l, sulfate 57.08 and 28.35 mg​/l, chloride 98.00 and 84.63 mg​/l, carbonates 362.18 and 32.64 mg​/l and bicarbonates 1138.30 and 253.33 mg​/l in sewage and normal water resp.) on Chlorella, Scenedesmus and Botryococus. The highest biomass (4.533 mg ml-​1)​, chlorophyll (15.56 μg ml-​1)​, lipid (49 %)​, acid value (0.52 mg KOH​/g)​, d. (0.885 g​/cm3)​, iodine value (75 mg​/g)​, sapon. value (0.125 mg KOH​/g)​, viscosity (4.8 mm2​/s)​, myristic acid (9.0​%)​, oleic acid (9.3​%)​, linolenic acid (20.1​%)​, palmitic acid (35.3​%)​, stearic acid (6.1​%) was obsd. in Scenedesmus than Botryococus and Chlorella. The properties of algal oil meet all the properties given by American society for testing and materials (ASTM) D6751, ISO 15607 and EN14214- Europe. Hence, it is concluded that algae can be grown better in sewage water than normal water for their oil and used as a potential feedstock for liq. biofuel prodn

Evaluation of oleaginous bacteria for potential biofuel

The present work was aiming to exploit bacteria for biodiesel prodn., twenty two bacterial isolates were screened for lipid content by Sudan black B staining method, among those three isolates is lipid rich viz, F. oryzihabitans, P. aeruginosa and Morococcus sp. which have been taken for lipid extn. by Bligh and dyer method and thin layer chromatog. for detn. of fatty acid, which revealed that the amt. of lipid was highest in Morococcus sp. (0.68mL​/100mL) of Lauric acid (C12)​. Optimization of C​/N ratio the amt. of lipid was ranged highest in Morococcus sp. i.e. carbon (0.70mL​/100mL) of palmitic acid (C18)​, nitrogen (0.65mL​/100mL) of arachidonic acid (C20) and at pH 7.0 (1.96mL​/100mL) of oleic acid (C18) and in strain improvement by mutagenesis F. oryzihabitans got improved and accumulate high lipid at 10 min (1.50mL​/100mL) of linoleic acid (C16)​

Comparative Study of Extraction Methods and Properties of Non Edible Oils for Biodiesel Production

Due to the limited availability of fossil fuel and environmental problems, considerable attention has been given to biodiesel production as an alternative to petro diesel. In this connection the non-edible seeds of Caryota urens, Bassia longifolia and Saraca asoca were analysed for their oil properties and fatty acids. Four different methods are tried for oil extraction among them physical method is more suited compared to Bligh and Dyer, Folch et al. and Chemical solvent extraction method and among the three seeds B. longifolia yields more oil (40mg/g) compared to S. asoca (35gm/g) and C. urens (25gm/g) and asoca

Lipid extraction for biodiesel production from municipal sewage water sludge

Municipal sewage is a source of various lipids where the lipids can be extracted and converted to biodiesel by transesterification reaction. The present study reveals the properties of extracted Lipids like, Viscosity mm2/S, Density, kg/m3, Acid value mg KOH/g, Iodine value g I2/100 g, Value of saponification(mg KOH/g), Free fatty acid (%),Capric acid (%),Lauric acid (%),Myristic acids (%),Stearic acid (%), Oleic acid (%),Palmitic acid (%),others are studied from waste water sludge collected from Hebbala, Nayandahalli and Vrishabhavathy treatment plants located in Bangalore in both summer and Rainy seasons and revealed in the paper. The lipid content was estimated to be maximum in summer season ranging from 785 mg/g in Hebbala and 486 mg/g in Nayandahalli sludge samples. Hence, the sewage sludge proved to be a good raw material which can be utilized for the synthesis of biodiesel economically and ecofriendly, with the extension of present investigation

The rising burden of chronic conditions among urban poor : a three-year follow-up survey in Bengaluru, India

Background: Chronic conditions are on rise globally and in India. Prevailing intra-urban inequities in access to healthcare services compounds the problems faced by urban poor. This paper reports the trends in self-reported prevalence of chronic conditions and health-seeking pattern among residents of a poor urban neighborhood in south India. Methods: A cross sectional survey of 1099 households (5340 individuals) was conducted using a structured questionnaire. The prevalence and health-seeking pattern for chronic conditions in general and for hypertension and diabetes in particular were assessed and compared with a survey conducted in the same community three years ago. The predictors of prevalence and health-seeking pattern were analyzed through a multivariable logistic regression analysis. Results: The overall self-reported prevalence of chronic conditions was 12 %, with hypertension (7 %) and diabetes (5.8 %) being the common conditions. The self-reported prevalence of chronic conditions increased by 3.8 percentage point over a period of three years (OR: 1.5). Older people, women and people living below the poverty line had greater odds of having chronic conditions across the two studies compared. Majority of patients (89.3 %) sought care from private health facilities indicating a decrease by 8.7 percentage points in use of government health facility compared to the earlier study (OR: 0.5). Patients seeking care from super specialty hospitals and those living below the poverty line were more likely to seek care from government health facilities. Conclusion: There is need to strengthen health services with a preferential focus on government services to assure affordable care for chronic conditions to urban poor

Applications of in-line fiber optic raman spectroscopy to polymer processes

Process monitoring is an essential part of ensuring the final product quality in a manufacturing process. In-line monitoring is developing at a fast pace as the method of choice as compared to the off-line monitoring techniques due to its advantages such as lower cost and lower waste. It also eliminates the sample preparation and handling concerns associated with the polymeric processes. In this research, in-line monitoring techniques were developed for emulsion polymerization and extrusion processes using fiber-optic Raman spectroscopy. Varying product quality from batch to batch and the residual monomer content are important concerns in the emulsion polymerization reactions. The kinetics of the batch emulsion polymerization were studied for the methyl methacrylate (MMA) and vinyl acetate (VA) polymerization. The Raman spectroscopy was also used to monitor changes in the reaction rate due to varying comonomer content (AA) for copolymerization of 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (2-EHA) with acrylic acid (AA). For the extrusion processes, a thorough study of the poly(ethylene vinyl acetate) (EVA) random copolymers was performed. Rigorous multivariate analysis was used to develop robust calibration models for quantification of VA concentrations. Rheological properties, such as melt index (MI) and complex viscosity (|η*(ω)|) of the EVA and polypropylene (PP) samples were monitored in real time using polarized Raman spectroscopy

Development of workflow for picornavirus genome sequence analysis

Picornaviruses are small, non-enveloped, icosahedral, positive stranded RNA viruses and among the most common human pathogens. Some of the clinically important genera for humans are Enterovirus, Hepatovirus, Parechovirus and Cardiovirus. The symptoms for tthe picornaviral infections range from mild, asymptomatic to fatal disease. Threats posed to human health by these viruses is observedd in the constant outbreaks of enteroviruses and parechoviruses in the different parts of the world. Next generation sequencing provides an efficient way to detect and identify known or novel micro-organisms. Advantages of NGS are rapid sequencing methods, high-throughput process and affordable costs. On the other hand, NGS also requires advanced technical and computational skills, and creates a bottleneck owing to necessity of standardization of bioinformatic tools. It is therefore imperative to optimize and determine parameters, which provide accuracy in every stage of NGS workflow. The aim of this thesis was to develop a rapid and straightforward, user-friendly workflow for the assembly and analysis of picornaviral genomes. Chipster platform was chosen as the primary test platform. The workflow involved use of automated analysis pipelines (VirusDetect and A5 assembly pipeline), and alternative approaches, which included pre-processing of raw data, and reference-mapping or de novo assembly (Velvet and SPAdes) of picornavirus sequences. Except for de novo assembly and validation and quality assessment of final outputs, all steps were performed in Chipster. Of these approaches, VirusDetect and reference-mapping were not successful. A5 pipeline for microbial genome assembly was found to be very suited for picornavirus identification. Velvet and SPAdes also performed well, but Velvet assembler was found to more computationally exhaustive and time consuming. Quality assessment suggested that performance of SPAdes was relatively better than the performance of A5 or Velvet. As A5 pipeline does not require any parameter settings, it can be used as initila identification and contig/scaffold generation method for picornaviral sequences. Together with implementation of de novo assembler(s) on Chipster platform a novel, user-friendly NGS workflow for picornavirus sequence assembly can be established

Arr Genes from Arsenate-Reducing Low G+C Gram Positive Bacteria Bacillus selenitireducens strain MLS10 and Clostridium sp. strain OhILAs

The gene encoding the small subunit of the respiratory arsenate reductase (arrB) from the haloalkaliphilic low G+C Gram positive bacterium Bacillus selenitireducens strain MLS-10 was amplified by PCR, cloned and sequenced. The amplicon was larger (~ 1.2 kb) than predicted indicating that the degenerate reverse primer hybridized to a region further down stream. The amplicon contained all of arrB and the 5\u27end of another open reading frame. The arrB (693 bp) predicts a 26.3 kDa protein of 230 amino acids with a pI of 5.5 and four iron-sulfur binding domains. The protein shares a 50% identity and 66% similarity with ArrB from Shewanella sp. strain ANA-3. arrA and arrB were also successfully amplified from the freshwater low G+C Gram positive Clostridium sp. strain OhILAs using newly designed degenerate PCR primers. Interestingly, the Clostridial ArrA appears to be more closely related to Chrysiogenes arsenatis while its ArrB is more closely related to Shewanella sp. ANA-3. These results underscore the diversity in the arr operon

RADIX-10 PARALLEL DECIMAL MULTIPLIER

This paper introduces novel architecture for Radix-10 decimal multiplier. The new generation of highperformance decimal floating-point units (DFUs) is demanding efficient implementations of parallel decimal multiplier. The parallel generation of partial products is performed using signed-digit radix-10 recoding of the multiplier and a simplified set of multiplicand multiples. The reduction of partial products is implemented in a tree structure based on a new algorithm decimal multioperand carry-save addition that uses a unconventional decimal-coded number systems. We further detail these techniques and it significantly improves the area and latency of the previous design, which include: optimized digit recoders, decimal carry-save adders (CSA’s) combining different decimal-coded operands, and carry free adders implemented by special designed bit counters