Combining UASB and the "fourth generation" down-flow hanging sponge reactor for municipal wastewater treatment.

A "fourth generation" down-flow hanging sponge (DHS) Reactor has been developed and proposed as an improved variant of post-treatment system for UASB treating domestic wastewater. This paper evaluates the potential of the proposed combination of UASB and DHS as a sewage treatment system, especially for developing countries. A pilot-scale UASB (1.15 m3) and DHS (0.38 m3; volume of sponge) was installed in a municipal sewage treatment site and constantly monitored for 2 years. UASB was operated at an HRT of 6 h corresponding to an organic load of 2.15 kg-COD/m3 per day. Subsequently, the organic load in DHS was 2.35 kg-COD/m3 per day, operated at an HRT of 2 h. Organic removal by the whole system was satisfactory, accomplishing 96% of unfiltered BOD removal and 91% of unfiltered COD removal. However, nitrification decreased from 56% during the startup period to 28% afterwards. Investigation on DHS sludge was made by quantifying it and evaluating oxygen uptake rates with various substrates. Average concentration of trapped biomass was 26 g-VSS/L of sponge volume, increasing the SRT of the system to 100-125 d. Removal of coliforms obtained was 3-4 log10 with the final count of 10(3) to 10(4) MPN/100 ml in DHS effluent.     

Complementation analysis reveals a potential role of human ARV1 in GPI anchor biosynthesis

ARV1 is involved in regulating lipid homeostasis but also in the biosynthesis of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we examined whether human ARV1 can complement the role of yeast ARV1 in GPI biosynthesis. Overexpression of human ARV1 could rescue the phenotypes associated with GPI anchor synthesis defect in the yeast arv1Δ mutant. The results suggest that Arv1 function in GPI biosynthesis may be conserved in all eukaryotes, from yeast to humans. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Recovered Protein from Frozen Small Croaker and Functional Properties of Its Hydrolysates

ABSTRACT:  Fish protein isolate were recovered from frozen small croaker using pH shift. The partial enzymatic hydrolysates were fractionated as soluble and insoluble parts. They were dried using the drum dryer and their functional properties were examined. The total nitrogen content of the enzymatic hydrolysates ranged from 12.9% to 13.7%. The degree of hydrolysis of precipitates was 18.2% and 12.2% for croaker hydrolysates treated with Protamex 1.5 MG ( Bacilllus  protease complex) and Flavourzyme 500 MG (endoproteases and exoproteases, Aspergillus oryzae ), respectively. The TCA supernatant, after centrifugation of hydrolysates, contained numerous peptides ranging from 100 to 4000 daltons. The solubility of the supernatants was higher than that of the precipitates at 0% to 3% NaCl and pH 2 to 10. The precipitate of Flavourzyme- and Protamex-treated hydrolysates showed a high emulsion activity index value compared to egg white and bovine plasma protein. In addition, the highest emulsion stability was observed for Protamex-treated precipitate hydrolysates. Emulsion stability of Protamex-treated precipitate hydrolysates was comparable to those of protein additives (egg white, bovine plasma protein, and soy protein concentrate). Water and fat binding capacity of precipitates were higher than those of supernatant. The results indicate that precipitate hydrolysate from undersized croaker can be used in processed muscle foods as a functional and nutritional ingredient.     

Advances in nature-guided materials processing

The center of excellence (COE) titled ‘The Creation of Nature-Guided Materials Processing’ has been established in Nagoya University as the 21st Century COE Program supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In the Nature COE, various activities on the education and research are being performed through learning the laws of nature, namely, methods of attaining ‘appearance of the maximum function under the minimum substance and energy consumption’, which the nature and living organisms have acquired through their evolution in long period. Together with such educational programs for PhD students as research incentive, oversea training, and external evaluation programs, an ‘Open-Cluster Program’ was originated for promoting researches proposed by research groups consisting of young researchers in and out of the university and also for fostering them.

The researches are being advanced on materials used for living bodies, mimicking structures which nature or living bodies are forming, and producing materials by mimicking processes to form the structures observed in the nature or the living bodies. In this COE, these researches are conducted by four groups to extend the processes observed in the natural world to a new type of processing, that is, thoroughly examined and rationalized by plunging a scalpel of engineering and to establish a new academic field of materials science and engineering.     

Thermoelectromechanical Interaction Among Multiparallel Cracks in a Piezoelectric Material

This paper investigates the thermoelectromechanical interaction among multi parallel cracks in a piezoelectric material under a uniform heat flow and a uniform mechanical load far away from the crack region. The crack faces are supposed to be insulated thermally and electrically. By using the Fourier transform, the thermal and electromechanical problems are reduced to systems of singular integral equations, respectively. The singular integral equations are solved numerically. Numerical calculations are carried out, and detailed results are presented to illustrate the influence of the thermoelectromechanical interaction on the stress and electric displacement intensity factors.     

A histochemical method using a substrate of beta-glucuronidase for detection of genetically modified papaya

A histochemical assay for detecting genetically modified (GM) papaya (derived from Line 55-1) is described. GM papaya, currently undergoing a safety assessment in Japan, was developed using a construct that included a beta-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene linked to a virus coat protein (CP) gene. Histochemical assay was used to visualize the blue GUS reaction product from transgenic seed embryos. Twelve embryos per fruit were extracted from the papaya seeds using a surgical knife. The embryos were incubated with the substrate 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-beta-D-glucuronide (X-Gluc) in a 96-well microtiter plate for 10-15 hours at 37 degrees C. Seventy-five percent of GM papaya embryos should turn blue theoretically. The histochemical assay results were completely consistent with those from a qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method developed by this laboratory. Furthermore, the method was validated in a five-laboratory study. The method for detection of GM papaya is rapid and simple, and does not require use of specialized equipment.     

Effects of Trisodium Phosphate and Sodium Chloride Dipping on the Microbial Quality and Shelf Life of Refrigerated Tray-packaged Chicken Breasts

Effects of trisodium phosphate (TSP) and/or sodium chloride (NaCl) dipping on microbial quality and shelf life of chicken breasts were investigated during refrigeration. Chicken breasts were dipped in aqueous solution (w/v) of 10% TSP, 10% NaCl, combination of TSP and NaCl (7.5% + 7.5%) or distilled water (control) for 10 min, followed by tray-packaging storage at 2 degrees C. During storage, chicken breasts dipped in TSP maintained almost constant pH, while pH of control or NaCl-treated samples significantly increased (P<0.05). TSP dipping resulted in initial reduction of 0.48 and 0.91 log(10) CFU/g in aerobic plate counts and Enterobacteriaceae count, respectively, when compared with control. By storage day 6, APC of control chicken breasts reached 6.91 log(10) CFU/g, while TSP-treatment either alone or in combination with NaCl significantly delayed microbial growth (P<0.05) and extended shelf life of refrigerated chicken breasts up to 12 days, at which APC were 6.87 and 6.39, respectively, versus 9.58 log(10) CFU/g for control. Significant reductions in psychrotrophic and Enterobacteriaceae count were detected at the end of storage period in chicken breasts treated with TSP alone or in combination with NaCl, whereas such treatments had no significant effects on lactobacilli or mold and yeast populations.     

Gas detection by structural variations of fluorescent guest molecules in a flexible porous coordination polymer

The development of a new methodology for visualizing and detecting gases is imperative for various applications. Here, we report a novel strategy in which gas molecules are detected by signals from a reporter guest that can read out a host structural transformation. A composite between a flexible porous coordination polymer and fluorescent reporter distyrylbenzene (DSB) selectively adsorbed CO? over other atmospheric gases. This adsorption induced a host transformation, which was accompanied by conformational variations of the included DSB. This read-out process resulted in a critical change in DSB fluorescence at a specific threshold pressure. The composite shows different fluorescence responses to CO? and acetylene, compounds that have similar physicochemical properties. Our system showed, for the first time, that fluorescent molecules can detect gases without any chemical interaction or energy transfer. The host-guest coupled transformations play a pivotal role in converting the gas adsorption events into detectable output signals.     

Depth profile analysis of thin passive films on stainless steel by glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy

Thin passive films formed on highly corrosion-resistant type-312L stainless steel, containing 20 mass% chromium and 6 mass% molybdenum, in 2 mol dm⁻³ HCl solution at 293 K have been analyzed by glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES). The stainless steel does not suffer pitting corrosion even in this aggressive solution, showing a wide passive potential region. The depth profiles obtained clearly show a two-layer structure of the air-formed and passive films: an outer iron-rich layer and an inner layer highly enriched in chromium. Alloy-constituting molybdenum is deficient in the inner layer of the passive films and is enriched in the outer layer, particularly at the active dissolution potential. The molybdenum species in the outer layer may retard the active dissolution of stainless steel, promoting the formation of stable passive films highly enriched in chromium. Chloride ions are present only at the outermost part of the passive films, not penetrating into the interior part.     

Prediction of heat exchanger performance by the thermal network method (Improvement of an evaporator's performance and restraining air flow bypass by adjusting the refrigerant‐flow path pattern)

This paper presents the influence of latent heat load by changing the relative humidity of air flow distribution in the super‐heated gas region in an evaporator and the effect of the refrigerant flow path pattern. To estimate the influence, we applied the thermal network method that can consider refrigerant quality distribution in the heat exchanger. If the super‐heated gas region spreads to the upper wind row, humid air goes through the heat exchanger without drying, called “air flow bypass.” To suppress this phenomenon and simultaneously obtain the best performance, we chose an optimum path pattern on the basis of this method. As a result, the prediction shows that performance of the evaporator is recovered 5% for a simple 2‐row 2‐path heat exchanger when 40% of the unbalance of air flow rate occurs. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20302