Chlorophyllase-Catalyzed Chlorophyll Removal from Vegetable Oils Using Recombinant Eukaryotic and Prokaryotic Enzymes

Chlorophyllase converts chlorophyll and pheophytin into their colorless derivatives (chlorophyllide/pheophorbide and phytol). This activity can be used in chlorophyll removal from vegetable oils. Chlorophyllase genes from Oscillatoria acuminata (OscChlase) and Citrus aurantium (CitChlase) were isolated, cloned, and expressed in E. coli. Bioinformatics analysis showed that both chlorophyllases shared a conserved GHSXG lipase motif responsible for their catalytic activity. SDS-PAGE and immunoblot assays revealed that both enzymes had a molecular weight of 35 kDa. The purified chlorophyllases were stable at a broad range of temperatures and showed the highest activity at 40 °C. OscChlase and CitChlase exhibited the highest activity at pH 6.0 and 7.0, respectively. Enzyme kinetics analysis revealed that OscChlase was able to hydrolyze bacteriochlorophyll-a more efficiently than the recombinant CitChlase (Vmax/Km of 0.38 for OscChlase vs. 0.01 min⁻¹ mg protein for CitChlase). Instead, CitChlase hydrolyzed chlorophyll-b more efficiently than OscChlase. Both enzymes were able to reduce the chlorophyll content of olive (from 623.1 to as low as 87.2 mg per kg oil) and canola oil (from 537.2 to as low as 101.1 mg per kg oil). The ratio of oil to the aqueous reaction media affected chlorophyll hydrolysis (P < 0.05). The lower the oil ratio was (10%), the higher the chlorophyll removal was (75–86%). The efficiency of CitChlase in chlorophyll removal was higher than that of OscChlase at oil ratios of 10 and 20, but lower at 30% ratio (P < 0.05). This is the first report on the application of recombinant OscChlase and CitChlase in chlorophyll removal (up to 86%) from vegetable oils.     

A TOPSIS-Based Multicriteria Approach to the Calibration of a Basin-Scale SWAT Hydrological Model

Water Resources Management - Calibration is one of the most important steps of hydrological modeling and applications. Observed data availability and model parameterization are two important...     

Groundwater Modeling Under Variable Operating Conditions Using SWAT,MODFLOW and MT3DMS: a Catchment Scale Approach to Water Resources Management

This paper presents an integrated modeling approach by linking soil and water application tool (SWAT), modular finite difference groundwater flow (MODFLOW) and modular 3-dimensional multi-species transport (MT3DMS) models capable of predicting a groundwater system response, in terms of flow and salt concentrations, to current and future development conditions. SWAT, a semi-distributed hydrologic model, estimates the spatio-temporal distribution of groundwater recharge rates. These rates are then input to MODFLOW using an interface module developed that maps the HRU-based spatial resolution of SWAT outflows into the cell-based spatial structure of inputs to MODFLOW and MT3DMS. The integrated SWAT-MODFLOW-MT3DMS model is used in modeling Dehloran aquifer system located in the arid western region of Iran, experiencing changes in land-use, irrigation system and pumping locations and loads. The results illustrate the significance of the developed integrated modeling tool in quantifying the impact of changes in land and surface water resources on its subsurface water system.     

Trans‐free fats through interesterification of canola oil/palm olein or fully hydrogenated soybean oil blends

Binary blends of canola oil (CO) and palm olein (POo) or fully hydrogenated soybean oil (FHSBO) were interesterified using commercial lipase, Lypozyme TL IM, or sodium methoxide. Free fatty acids (FFA) and soap content increased and peroxide value (PV) decreased after enzymatic or chemical interesterification. No difference was observed between the PV of enzymatically and chemically interesterified blends. Enzymatically interesterified fats contained higher FFA and lower soap content than chemically prepared fats. Slip melting point (SMP) and solid‐fat content (SFC) of CO and POo blends increased, whereas those of CO and FHSBO blends decreased after chemical or enzymatic interesterification. Enzymatically interesterified CO and POo blends had lower SMP and SFC (at some temperatures) than chemically interesterified blends. The status was reverse when comparing chemically and enzymatically interesterified CO and FHSBO blends. The induction period for oxidation at 120°C of blends decreased after interesterification. However, chemically interesterified blends were more oxidatively stable than enzymatically interesterified blends. Interesterified blends of CO and POo or FHSBO displayed characteristics suited to application as trans‐free soft tub, stick, roll‐in and baker's margarine, cake shortening and vanaspati fat.     

Thermal and biodegradation properties of poly(lactic acid)/rice straw composites: effects of modified pulping products

Iranian Polymer Journal - In this work, rice straw (RS) as an abundant biomass was chemically thermoplasticized through alkali pulping and benzylation reactions, which destroy inter- and...     

Adaptive simulation of wave propagation problems including dislocation sources and random media

An adaptive Tikhonov regularization is integrated with an h-adaptive grid-based scheme for simulation of elastodynamic problems, involving seismic sources with discontinuous solutions and random media. The Tikhonov method is adapted by a newly-proposed detector based on the MINMOD limiters and the grids are adapted by the multiresolution analysis (MRA) via interpolation wavelets. Hence, both small and large magnitude physical waves are preserved by the adaptive estimations on non-uniform grids. Due to developing of non-dissipative spurious oscillations, numerical stability is guaranteed by the Tikhonov regularization acting as a post-processor on irregular grids. To preserve waves of small magnitudes, an adaptive regularization is utilized: using of smaller amount of smoothing for small magnitude waves. This adaptive smoothing guarantees also solution stability without over smoothing phenomenon in stochastic media. Proper distinguishing between noise and small physical waves are challenging due to existence of spurious oscillations in numerical simulations. This identification is performed in this study by the MINMOD limiter based algorithm. Finally, efficiency of the proposed concept is verified by: 1) three benchmarks of one-dimensional (1-D) wave propagation problems; 2) P-SV point sources and rupturing line-source including a bounded fault zone with stochastic material properties.     

Is there an association between intradialytic hypotension and serum magnesium changes?

Intradialytic hypotension (IDH) is the most common complication of hemodialysis (HD). The aim of this study was to investigate the significance of intradialytic changes of serum magnesium (sMg) and its relation to IDH. We considered 58 patients undergoing HD. Serum magnesium was measured at start, after 2 hours, and at the end of the HD sessions. Total sMg concentration corrected for albumin was according to Krolles proposed formula. Blood pressure was measured every 30 min. Data were analyzed by SPSS.15. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered as significant. Occurrence of IDH among HD patients was 27.6% (16/58). Serum magnesium decreased significantly during HD session (P<0.05). Comparing corrected sMg in IDH group with non-IDH group showed that: corrected sMg was 0.66 ± 0.14 mmol/L vs. 0.84 ± 0.26 mmol/L at the start of dialysis (P=0.43), 0.62 ± 0.17 mmol/L vs. 0.74 ± 0.23 mmol/L (P=0.04) at 2 hours, and 0.61 ± 0.12 mmol/L vs. 0.72 ± 0.22 mmol/L (P=0.03) at the end of dialysis. Intradialytic hypotension episodes were significantly related to a decrease in sMg during dialysis (P=0.02). There was a significant decrease in sMg levels during dialysis. Intradialytic hypotension was significantly related to lowered sMg levels during dialysis.     

Image retrieval based on index compressed vector quantization

Increased amount of visual data in several applications necessitates content-based image retrieval. Since most of visual data is stored in compressed form, it is crucial to develop indexing techniques for searching images based on their content in compressed form. Therefore, it is desirable to explore image compression techniques with capability of describing image content in compressed form. Vector Quantization (VQ) is a compression scheme that exploits intra-block correlation and image correlation reflects image content, hence VQ is a suitable compression technique for compressed domain image retrieval.This paper introduces a novel indexing scheme for compressed domain image databases based on indices generated from IC-VQ. The proposed scheme extracts image features based on relationship between indices of IC-VQ compressed images. This relationship detects contiguous regions of compressed image based on inter- and intra-block correlation. Experimental results show effectiveness superiority of the new scheme compared to VQ and color-based schemes.     

Application of an Interior-Point Algorithm For Optimization of a Large-Scale Reservoir System

Optimization of a multi-reservoir system operation is challenging due to the non-linearity, stochasticity, and dimensionality involved in such a problem. In this research, a long-term planning model is presented for optimizing the operation of Iranian Karoon-Dez reservoir system using an interior-point algorithm. The system is the largest multi-purpose reservoir system in Iran with hydropower generation, water supply, and environmental objectives. The focus is on resolving the dimensionality of this problem while considering hydropower generation and water supply objectives. The weighting and constraints methods of multi-objective programming are used to assess the trade-off between water supply and hydropower objectives so as to find noninferior solutions. The computational efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated using historical data taken from Karoon-Dez reservoir system.     

Ultra-trace determination of silver in water samples by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry after preconcentration with a ligand-less cloud point extraction methodology

A very simple and ligand-less cloud point extraction (CPE) methodology for the preconcentration of ultra-trace amounts of silver as a prior step to its determination by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) has been developed. The method is based on the extraction of silver at pH 9 by using non-ionic surfactant polyethyleneglycolmono-p-nonylphenylether (PONPE 7.5) without adding any chelating agent. Several important variables that affect the CPE efficiency and ETAAS signal were investigated and optimized. The preconcentration of 15 ml sample solution allowed us to achieve an enhancement factor of 60. The calibration graph using the preconcentration system was linear in the range of 5-100 ngl(-1) with a correlation coefficient of 0.9991. The lower limit of detection (3s) obtained in the optimal conditions was 1.2 ngl(-1). The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) for eight replicate determinations at 30 ngl(-1) Ag level was 4.2%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the ultra-trace determination of silver in water samples.