Anaerobic digestion of various mixtures of corn stover and swine manure on methane production

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4046279

A Novel Role for CD46 in Wound Repair

The intestinal epithelium not only provides a vital physical barrier between the host and environment but is also required for uptake of nutrients and the induction of tolerance against commensals. Deregulation of any of these functions leads to several disease states including chronic infection, inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer. Here, we describe a novel role for the complement regulator CD46 in the regulation of intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) barrier function. We found that CD46 directly interacts in IECs with the cytoplasmic kinase SPAK and with transmembrane E-cadherin, both proteins necessary for epithelial cell junction and barrier formation. Further, CD46 activation on Caco-2 cells induced rapid and significant decrease in transepithelial resistance with concomitant increase in paracellular permeability. Importantly, though CD46 activation of IEC layers allowed for increased transgression of pathogenic E. coli, it also increased epithelial cell proliferation and accelerated wound repair. These data suggest a previously unappreciated role for CD46 in the maintenance of epithelial cell barrier integrity as well as barrier repair. However, this role for CD46 as “gate keeper” of the epithelium could also provide reason as to why so many pathogens bind to CD46 as such event would facilitate infection

Removal of volatile organic compounds from wastewater during the coagulation process.

Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1988 .S455. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, page: . Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1988

Exploring the decision-making process of men's branded underwear consumers

"The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of involvement, brand loyalty, and gender in the purchase of men's branded underwear, and specifically during the evaluation of alternatives and product choice stages of the decision-making process. Interviews were conducted with fifteen department store shoppers to explore their use of evaluative criteria and the impact of these criteria on product choice. Interview data revealed four main consumer profiles: high involvement /brand loyal, high involvement not brand loyal, low involvement/brand loyal, and low involvement not brand loyal consumers. The majority of participants were either high involvement/brand loyal, or low involvement/not loyal. Results of this study point to the need for marketers to better understand the men's branded underwear consumer in order to successfully market new products in an increasingly diversified apparel product category. Similarly, manufacturers could better cater to consumers' needs and wants by understanding consumer perceptions of brand value. Further research is needed to more fully explore the implications of such considerations as channel type, consumer demographics, and lifestyle marketing for the purchase of men's branded underwear."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Comparison of 2- and 3-compartment electrodialytic remediation cells for oil polluted soil from northwest Russia

Electrodialytic remediation is a method based on electrokinetics, in which an electric field of low intensity increases the availability of pollutants in solid waste materials. The electric field induces processes that mobilise and transport inorganic and organic pollutants. The transport of ions in the electrodialytic cell is controlled by employing ion-exchange membranes, allowing separation of the electrodes from the solids. In this study, using a two cell design, electrodialytic experiments were conducted to compare remediation of a heavily oil-polluted soil from Arkhangelsk, Russia. The 2-compartment cell has not previously been employed for electrodialytic removal of organic pollutants and was tested along with the traditional 3- compartment design. The influence of experimental variables (current density, remediation time, stirring and light) and settings on the two cell designs was investigated. The highest removal (77%) of total hydrocarbons (THC) was observed in the 3-compartment cell at high current density (0.68 mA/cm2 ), longer remediation time (28 days), stirring and exposure to daylight. High current density and stirring increased the removal efficiencies in both cell designs. Within the studied experimental domain, the removal efficiencies in the 3-compartment cell (10–77%) were, however, higher than those observed in the 2-compartment cell (0–38%)

Development of Efficient Composites via Renewable, Recyclable, and Degradable Additives

Rapid development of composite industries raised the demand for tough, effective, practical, and sustainable composites with enhanced mechanical, electrical, thermal, and physical properties. However, several major problems such as high production cost and nonrecyclability and nondegradability of fillers and composites limited their selectivity and approaches toward their aims. Herein, our aim is to present and review the recent achievements in matter of reinforced composites with renewable, recyclable, or degradable additives toward development of composites through a mass-scale production strategy with least charges, high efficiency, and fine mechanical, thermal, and physical properties. Additionally, such aim can reduce the overall amount of nondegradable pollutions such as plastics in the nature and decline overall the charges of composite industries by reusing such materials and decreasing their demand for raw material. Last but not least, to clean up the nature from industrial wastes, green strategies should be developed to whether reuse such material or degrade them via practical strategies

Aqueous electrosynthesis of an electrochromic material based water-soluble EDOT-MeNH2 hydrochloride

2\u27-Aminomethyl-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT-MeNH2) showed unsatisfactory results when its polymerization occurred in organic solvent in our previous report. Therefore, a water-soluble EDOT derivative was designed by using hydrochloric modified EDOT-MeNH2 (EDOT-MeNH2·HCl) and electropolymerized in aqueous solution to form the corresponding polymer with excellent electrochromic properties. Moreover, the polymer was systematically explored, including electrochemical, optical properties and structure characterization. Cyclic voltammetry showed low oxidation potential of EDOT-MeNH2·HCl (0.85 V) in aqueous solution, leading to the facile electrodeposition of uniform the polymer film with outstanding electroactivity. Compared with poly(2′-aminomethyl- 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT-MeNH2), poly(2′-aminomethyl-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene salt) (PEDOT-MeNH3 +A-) revealed higher efficiencies (156 cm2 C-1), lower bandgap (1.68 eV), and faster response time (1.4 s). Satisfactory results implied that salinization can not only change the polymerization system, but also adjust the optical absorption, thereby increase the electrochromic properties

Linearized Bregman iteration based model‐free adaptive sliding mode control for a class of non‐linear systems

There is a growing demand for robust data-driven control methods particularly for industrial process control. This paper presents a new model-free adaptive sliding mode control approach for a class of discrete-time, multiple input and multiple output non-linear systems. The proposed methodology seeks to address issues with the computation of inverse matrices and problems with singularity in existing methods while at the same time seeking to enhance robustness. A Majorization–Minimization technique and the L1 norm are used within the proposed optimization and an online iterative approach is described for update of the control law. The closed-loop system response is proved to be stable. The effectiveness of the proposed control is validated by extensive simulation and also experimental results, with the performance obtained by the proposed approach being compared throughout with a well-known approach from the established literature