Observations on Things Measured in the Bible

As a new engineering professor at a Christian university that allows an extra five minutes in each class for spiritual and devotional instruction, I thought it would be interesting in the Engineering Technology Measurements Laboratory classroom sessions to focus our devotions on the topic of Measurements in the Bible. This included terms of measurement, things that are or can be measured, and insights into measureable subjects. In general, observations were made systematically based on daily Bible reading, starting with the first words “In the beginning…” and continuing through the Pentateuch during the semester. However, general observations from New Testament and other Old Testament readings were also made. As such, measurement topics can be broken into two main categories: physical substances and metaphysical topics. Physical substances include the obvious metrics concerning weight, size (length), time, and value (worth), as well as the general numbering (counting) of physical objects. Insights can be gathered based on the emphasis that God seems to place on certain lengths of time or timing of events, numbers or amounts of things, and the value of certain items. But even more interesting are the intangible matters related to Christian living that seem to imply measurement. Jesus speaks often of faith as something that can be measured – He cites people as having little (e.g., Mt 6:30, 8:26, 16:8) or much (e.g., Mt 8:10, 15:28) faith. Paul talks about faith growing (e.g., 2Cor 10:15, 1Thes 1:3), as if one should be able to measure it – perhaps relative to our trials requiring a certain amount of faith (should we consider how to measure in “faith units”?). Peter offers his readers grace in abundance (1Pet 1:2, 2Pet 1:2) and expects them to “grow in the grace…of Jesus” (2Pet 3:18), as if grace is something that can be measured. Similarly, hope, joy, love, and knowledge are all referred to as something measureable in the life of the believer. This paper presents some of these observations, of both tangible and intangible objects of measurements in the Bible, including some associated implications for the believer

Testing the Bell Inequality at Experiments of High Energy Physics

Besides using the laser beam, it is very tempting to directly testify the Bell inequality at high energy experiments where the spin correlation is exactly what the original Bell inequality investigates. In this work, we follow the proposal raised in literature and use the successive decays $J/\psi\to\gamma\eta_c\to \Lambda\bar\Lambda\to p\pi^-\bar p\pi^+$ to testify the Bell inequality. Our goal is twofold, namely, we first make a Monte-Carlo simulation of the processes based on the quantum field theory (QFT). Since the underlying theory is QFT, it implies that we pre-admit the validity of quantum picture. Even though the QFT is true, we need to find how big the database should be, so that we can clearly show deviations of the correlation from the Bell inequality determined by the local hidden variable theory. There have been some critiques on the proposed method, so in the second part, we suggest some improvements which may help to remedy the ambiguities indicated by the critiques. It may be realized at an updated facility of high energy physics, such as BES III.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Utilisation du limonène comme synthon agrochimique pour la synthèse et l'extraction de produits naturels

The objective of this study was to transform limonene as an agro-chemical platform for the production of a wide range of added-value compounds for pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food ingredients. This molecule was also evaluated as an alternative solvent for the extraction of several bioactive compounds compared to n-hexane. Limonene was extracted from the essential oils of orange peels through a solvent-free microwave extraction technique. Limonene was successfully transformed into products with industrial interest by catalytic oxidation using three different iron catalysts. The ability of limonene to be used as an alternative solvent was performed using two simulation tools, Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs) and the Conductor-like Screening Model for Real Solvents (COSMO-RS), and via experimentation. The results indicated that limonene could be a promising green solvent and synthon for petroleum substitution in the extraction or synthesis of bioactive compounds.L'objectif de cette étude est de montrer les potentialités du limonène comme une plateforme agrochimique pour la production d'une large gamme de composés à valeur ajoutée pour les industries pharmaceutique, cosmétique et agroalimentaire. Cette molécule a été évaluée en tant que synthon pour la synthèse de molécules bioactives et comme solvant alternatif à l'hexane pour l'extraction de composés bioactifs. Deux outils de simulation solvant--soluté ont été utilisés pour simuler et optimiser les potentialités du limonène : les paramètres de solubilité Hansen (HSP) et le modèle « Conductor-like Screening Model for Real Solvents » (COSMO-RS). Les résultats indiquent que le limonène peut être un solvant vert et un synthon prometteur pour la substitution du pétrole dans l'extraction ou la synthèse de composés bioactifs.This work was supported in part thanks to funding from the fellowship given to Edinson Yara Varón (No. TECSPR14-2-0029) from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7/2007-2013) under REA grant agreement no. 600388 (TECNIOspring programme), and from the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia, ACCIÓ

Review: Towards the agroecological management of ruminants, pigs and poultry through the development of sustainable breeding programmes. II. Breeding strategies

Agroecology uses ecological processes and local resources rather than chemical inputs to develop productive and resilient livestock and crop production systems. In this context, breeding innovations are necessary to obtain animals that are both productive and adapted to a broad range of local contexts and diversity of systems. Breeding strategies to promote agroecological systems are similar for different animal species. However, current practices differ regarding the breeding of ruminants, pigs and poultry. Ruminant breeding is still an open system where farmers continue to choose their own breeds and strategies. Conversely, pig and poultry breeding is more or less the exclusive domain of international breeding companies which supply farmers with hybrid animals. Innovations in breeding strategies must therefore be adapted to the different species. In developed countries, reorienting current breeding programmes seems to be more effective than developing programmes dedicated to agroecological systems that will struggle to be really effective because of the small size of the populations currently concerned by such systems. Particular attention needs to be paid to determining the respective usefulness of cross-breeding v. straight breeding strategies of well-adapted local breeds. While cross-breeding may offer some immediate benefits in terms of improving certain traits that enable the animals to adapt well to local environmental conditions, it may be difficult to sustain these benefits in the longer term and could also induce an important loss of genetic diversity if the initial pure-bred populations are no longer produced. As well as supporting the value of within-breed diversity, we must preserve between-breed diversity in order to maintain numerous options for adaptation to a variety of production environments and contexts. This may involve specific public policies to maintain and characterize local breeds (in terms of both phenotypes and genotypes), which could be used more effectively if they benefited from the scientific and technical resources currently available for more common breeds. Last but not least, public policies need to enable improved information concerning the genetic resources and breeding tools available for the agroecological management of livestock production systems, and facilitate its assimilation by farmers and farm technicians

CP violation in J/ψ→ΛΛˉJ/\psi \rightarrow \Lambda \bar \Lambda

We study CP violation in $J/\psi \rightarrow \Lambda \bar{\Lambda}$ decay. This decay provides a good place to look for CP violation. Some observables are very sensitive to the $\Lambda$ electric dipole moment $d_\Lambda$ and therefore can be used to improve the experimental upper bound on $d_\Lambda$. CP violations in the lepton pair decays of $J/\psi$ and $\Upsilon$ are also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, RevTex, UM-P-92/113, OZ-92/3

High Yields of Shrimp Oil Rich in Omega-3 and Natural Astaxanthin from Shrimp Waste

A valued marine oil rich in omega-3 lipids and natural astaxanthin is obtained with remarkably high yield (up to 5 wt %) extending to pink shrimp waste (head and carapace) using the approach to extract fish oil from fish processing byproducts using d-limonene. Biobased limonene is an excellent solvent for both unsaturated lipids and astaxanthin-based carotenoids preventing oxidative degradation during the extraction cycle including solvent separation at 85 °C. Explaining the deep red color of the shrimp oil obtained, computational simulation suggests that d-limonene is also a good solvent for natural astaxanthin abundant in shrimp

Vegetable oils as alternative solvents for green oleo-extraction, purification and formulation of food and natural products

Since solvents of petroleum origin are now strictly regulated worldwide, there is a growing demand for using greener, bio-based and renewable solvents for extraction, purification and formulation of natural and food products. The ideal alternative solvents are non-volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that have high dissolving power and flash point, together with low toxicity and less environmental impact. They should be obtained from renewable resources at a reasonable price and be easy to recycle. Based on the principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, vegetable oils could become an ideal alternative solvent to extract compounds for purification, enrichment, or even pollution remediation. This review presents an overview of vegetable oils as solvents enriched with various bioactive compounds from natural resources, as well as the relationship between dissolving power of non-polar and polar bioactive components with the function of fatty acids and/or lipid classes in vegetable oils, and other minor components. A focus on simulation of solvent-solute interactions and a discussion of polar paradox theory propose a mechanism explaining the phenomena of dissolving polar and non-polar bioactive components in vegetable oils as green solvents with variable polarity.Edinson Yara Varón thanks to fellowship funding (No. TECSPR14-2-0029) from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7/2007-2013) under REA grant agreement No. 600388 (TECNIOspring programme), and from the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia, ACCIÓ. Ying Li would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 31701633) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 17817028), as well as special funds from “SanWu Talent 2014” and sixth “100-Talent” Programs

Preoperative MRI-radiomics features improve prediction of survival in glioblastoma patients over MGMT methylation status alone

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common malignant central nervous system tumor, and MGMT promoter hypermethylation in this tumor has been shown to be associated with better prognosis. We evaluated the capacity of radiomics features to add complementary information to MGMT status, to improve the ability to predict prognosis. Methods: 159 patients with untreated GBM were included in this study and divided into training and independent test sets. 286 radiomics features were extracted from the magnetic resonance images acquired prior to any treatments. A least absolute shrinkage selection operator (LASSO) selection followed by Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to determine the prognostic value of radiomics features to predict overall survival (OS). The combination of MGMT status with radiomics was also investigated and all results were validated on the independent test set. Results: LASSO analysis identified 8 out of the 286 radiomic features to be relevant which were then used for determining association to OS. One feature (edge descriptor) remained significant on the external validation cohort after multiple testing (p=0.04) and the combination with MGMT identified a group of patients with the best prognosis with a survival probability of 0.61 after 43 months (p=0.0005). Conclusion: Our results suggest that combining radiomics with MGMT is more accurate in stratifying patients into groups of different survival risks when compared to with using these predictors in isolation. We identified two subgroups within patients who have methylated MGMT: one with a similar survival to unmethylated MGMT patients and the other with a significantly longer OS