Fed batch production of hydrogen from palm oil mill effluent using anaerobic microflora

Anaerobic production of hydrogen from palm oil mill effluent (POME) by microflora was investigated in 5-l bioreactor at 60 °C and pH 5.5. POME sludge was collected from the anaerobic pond of a POME treatment plant at a palm oil mill and used as a source of inocula. A batch reactor was found to yield a total of 4708 ml H2H2/(l POME) and the maximum evolution rate was 454 ml-H2H2/(l POME h). A fed batch process was conducted after 50 h. Two liters of reaction medium was removed and 2 l of fresh POME was added to the reactor every 24 h (15 times). The reproducibility of the fed batch process checked by changing the feeding time every 8 h (10 times). A yield of 2382 ml H2H2/(l POME) and 2419 ml H2H2/(l POME) at maximum evolution rate of 313 ml H2H2/(l POME h) and 436 ml H2H2/(l POME h) were obtained, respectively. Throughout the study, methane gas was not observed in the evolved gas mixture

Reduction of Al-induced oxidative damage in wheat

Abstract Aluminum stress inhibited root growth and caused serious oxidative damage in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) seedlings. Under Al stress, added Ca significantly improved root growth, decreased Al, H 2 O 2 and TBARS content and increased O 2 -generation, Ca content, improved CAT activity, and decreased OXO and FA-POX activity. Interestingly, Ca levels did not have any significant effect on SOD activity under Al stressed condition. Histochemical data also showed that added Ca decreased the accumulation of phenolic compounds synchronously with the reduction of Al and H 2 O 2 content in the Al-stressed roots. Both biochemical and histochemical data revealed that added Ca reduced oxidative coupling reactions (i.e. cross-link formation) of phenolic compounds by decreasing FA-POX and thus improving the root growth of wheat seedlings under Al stress. The results suggest that the exogenously supplied Ca may be involved in alleviating Al-induced oxidative damage by regulating ROS level via antioxidant enzyme activities and improving root growth by displacing Al from the root surface

Biological production of hydrogen from glucose by natural anaerobic microflora

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) sludge, sludge compost from Malaysia and CREST compost from Philippines were collected for the study. The capability of these microflora to produce hydrogen was examined with 500 ml artificial wastewater containing 1% glucose, 0.2% yeast extract and 0.018% magnesium chloride hexahydrate under anaerobic fermentation in a batch culture. The microflora in POME sludge, sludge compost and CREST compost were found to produce significant amounts of hydrogen. The maximum production yield of hydrogen per decomposed glucose was 2.1 mol/mol-glucose at a conversion rate of 0.137 L/(L-medh) at 50°C obtained by sludge compost. All fermentations were carried out without pH control. It was also found that the addition of nitrogen source in the medium caused a change in hydrogen produced. There was no methane gas in the evolved gas

A P2P Botnet detection scheme based on decision tree and adaptive multilayer neural networks

In recent years, Botnets have been adopted as a popular method to carry and spread many malicious codes on the Internet. These malicious codes pave the way to execute many fraudulent activities including spam mail, distributed denial-of-service attacks and click fraud. While many Botnets are set up using centralized communication architecture, the peer-to-peer (P2P) Botnets can adopt a decentralized architecture using an overlay network for exchanging command and control data making their detection even more difficult. This work presents a method of P2P Bot detection based on an adaptive multilayer feed-forward neural network in cooperation with decision trees. A classification and regression tree is applied as a feature selection technique to select relevant features. With these features, a multilayer feed-forward neural network training model is created using a resilient back-propagation learning algorithm. A comparison of feature set selection based on the decision tree, principal component analysis and the ReliefF algorithm indicated that the neural network model with features selection based on decision tree has a better identification accuracy along with lower rates of false positives. The usefulness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by conducting experiments on real network traffic datasets. In these experiments, an average detection rate of 99.08 % with false positive rate of 0.75 % was observed

Use of ultrasound by emergency medical services: a review

Prehospital ultrasound has been deployed in certain areas of the USA and Europe. Physicians, emergency medical technicians, and flight nurses have utilized a variety of medical and trauma ultrasound assessments to impact patient care in the field. The goal of this review is to summarize the literature on emergency medical services (EMS) use of ultrasound to more clearly define the potential utility of this technology for prehospital providers

Use of ultrasound by emergency medical services: a review

Prehospital ultrasound has been deployed in certain areas of the USA and Europe. Physicians, emergency medical technicians, and flight nurses have utilized a variety of medical and trauma ultrasound assessments to impact patient care in the field. The goal of this review is to summarize the literature on emergency medical services (EMS) use of ultrasound to more clearly define the potential utility of this technology for prehospital providers

A Knockout of the Tsg101 Gene Leads to Decreased Expression of ErbB Receptor Tyrosine Kinases and Induction of Autophagy Prior to Cell Death

The Tumor Susceptibility Gene 101 (Tsg101) encodes a multi-domain protein that mediates a variety of molecular and biological processes including the trafficking and lysosomal degradation of cell surface receptors. Conventional and conditional knockout models have demonstrated an essential requirement of this gene for cell cycle progression and cell viability, but the consequences of a complete ablation of Tsg101 on intracellular processes have not been examined to date. In this study, we employed mouse embryonic fibroblasts that carry two Tsg101 conditional knockout alleles to investigate the expression of ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases as well as stress-induced intracellular processes that are known to be associated with a defect in growth and cell survival. The conditional deletion of the Tsg101 gene in this well-controlled experimental model resulted in a significant reduction in the steady-state levels of the EGFR and ErbB2 but a stress-induced elevation in the phosphorylation of mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinases independent of growth factor stimulation. As part of an integrated stress response, Tsg101-deficient cells exhibited extensive remodeling of actin filaments and greatly enlarged lysosomes that were enriched with the autophagy-related protein LC3. The increase in the transcriptional activation and expression of LC3 and its association with Lamp1-positive lysosomes in a PI3K-dependent manner suggest that Tsg101 knockout cells utilize autophagy as a survival mechanism prior to their ultimate death. Collectively, this study shows that a knockout of the Tsg101 gene causes complex intracellular changes associated with stress response and cell death. These multifaceted alterations need to be recognized as they have an impact on defining particular functions for Tsg101 in processes such as signal transduction and lysosomal/endosomal trafficking

Real-time compression feedback for patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest: a multi-center randomized controlled clinical trial

Objective: To determine if real-time compression feedback using a non-automated hand-held device improves patient outcomes from in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). Methods: We conducted a prospective, randomized, controlled, parallel study (no crossover) of patients with IHCA in the mixed medical–surgical intensive care units (ICUs) of eight academic hospitals. Patients received either standard manual chest compressions or compressions performed with real-time feedback using the Cardio First Angel™ (CFA) device. The primary outcome was sustained return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), and secondary outcomes were survival to ICU and hospital discharge. Results: One thousand four hundred fifty-four subjects were randomized; 900 were included. Sustained ROSC was significantly improved in the CFA group (66.7% vs. 42.4%, P < 0.001), as was survival to ICU discharge (59.8% vs. 33.6%) and survival to hospital discharge (54% vs. 28.4%, P < 0.001). Outcomes were not affected by intra-group comparisons based on intubation status. ROSC, survival to ICU, and hospital discharge were noted to be improved in inter-group comparisons of non-intubated patients, but not intubated ones. Conclusion: Use of the CFA compression feedback device improved event survival and survival to ICU and hospital discharge