Biodiesel production from palm oil

Methyl ester was produced from many sources of oil palm products, namely used frying oil, RBD palm oil, degummed and deacidified palm oil, palm stearin and superhard palm stearin. Production process was a conventional transesterification batch process using methanol as reactant and sodium hydroxide as catalyst. Production procedure consisted of oil preparation, solvent preparation, reaction step, glycerol separation, washing step and finishing step. Thin layer chromatograph was used to determine the composition of product and nearly 100% methyl ester was obtained at a suitable condition. Molar ratio of oil: methanol was about 1:6, which equal to 20% by weight of methanol. Sodium hydroxide was 0.5-1 %wt. of oil. The production temperature was 60-80ºC, mixing time was only 15-30 minutes and reaction time was 3-4 hours. Many fuel properties of methyl ester were very close to high-speed diesel such as viscosity, density, heating value and boiling point range. Pour point of methyl ester was higher than diesel owing to the high composition of saturated methyl ester that has a high melting point

Recurrent genomic gains in preinvasive lesions as a biomarker of risk for lung cancer.

Lung carcinoma development is accompanied by field changes that may have diagnostic significance. We have previously shown the importance of chromosomal aneusomy in lung cancer progression. Here, we tested whether genomic gains in six specific loci, TP63 on 3q28, EGFR on 7p12, MYC on 8q24, 5p15.2, and centromeric regions for chromosomes 3 (CEP3) and 6 (CEP6), may provide further value in the prediction of lung cancer. Bronchial biopsy specimens were obtained by LIFE bronchoscopy from 70 subjects (27 with prevalent lung cancers and 43 individuals without lung cancer). Twenty six biopsies were read as moderate dysplasia, 21 as severe dysplasia and 23 as carcinoma in situ (CIS). Four-micron paraffin sections were submitted to a 4-target FISH assay (LAVysion, Abbott Molecular) and reprobed for TP63 and CEP 3 sequences. Spot counts were obtained in 30-50 nuclei per specimen for each probe. Increased gene copy number in 4 of the 6 probes was associated with increased risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer both in unadjusted analyses (odds ratio = 11, p<0.05) and adjusted for histology grade (odds ratio = 17, p<0.05). The most informative 4 probes were TP63, MYC, CEP3 and CEP6. The combination of these 4 probes offered a sensitivity of 82% for lung cancer and a specificity of 58%. These results indicate that specific cytogenetic alterations present in preinvasive lung lesions are closely associated with the diagnosis of lung cancer and may therefore have value in assessing lung cancer risk

Association between disease status and abnormal FISH marker (>2 copies per cell) for the top 4 markers (CEP3, <i>TP63</i>, CEP6, <i>MYC</i>).

*<p>Adjusted by multiple logistic regression for gender, age, center, current smoking status and histologic grade.</p

Percentage of lesions with abnormal FISH copy numbers according to case or control status (70 subjects).

*<p>Adjusted by multiple logistic regression for gender, age, center, and current smoking status.</p

Distribution of lung cancer cases and controls according to demographic and histology variables.

<p>Distribution of lung cancer cases and controls according to demographic and histology variables.</p

Receiver operating characteristic curves describing the diagnostic prediction accuracy of three models, demographics alone (plain line, area under the curve (AUC) 73.4%), in combination with cytology (dashed line, AUC 86.6%) or demographics in combination with cytology and 4 FISH biomarker candidates (dotted line, AUC 92.6%).

<p>The demographic information represents gender, age, pack years smoking history, and smoking status.</p