Storage stability of poultry fat and diesel fuel mixtures: Part II - Chemical properties

This publication continues previously published work from the authors which evaluates the storage potential of poultry fat for its use as an unmodified biofuel in heat and steam generating systems [1]. The previous work examined the physical properties of these fats while this study is concerned with chemical properties. In this study poultry fat (biofuel) and its 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% mixtures with #2 pump diesel fuel were stored for 1 year at bench scale (1L) under controlled laboratory conditions at 4, 38, 54.4 °C and at 22 °C. One hundred percent of poultry fat was studied under these same conditions with and without an antioxidant additive. Twenty and eighty percent of poultry fat mixtures were also stored at pilot scale (250 gallons) under outdoor, ambient conditions. Chemical properties relevant to the use of these mixtures as a biofuel for industrial boilers were studied and tracked. These properties include Energy Values (BTU), Ultimate Analysis (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, ash, nitrogen, and sulfur), moisture, impurities, unsaponafiables (MIU), and Free Fatty Acid Content. Energy content of the biofuel samples dropped over the course of the study with untreated biofuel losing 18.9% of its BTU value over the course of a year. Ultimate analyses showed an overall increase in carbon composition and a decrease in oxygen content. Hydrogen levels increased in most treatments as did overall ash and sulfur percent composition. MIU values increased, this overall increase was attributable to variable increases in insolubles and unsaponifiables. Free fatty acid levels increased in all treatments. Most of the chemical changes observed in this study were reduced by the addition of antioxidant to 100% biofuel.     

The processing element design for a large-scale spatio-temporal pattern clustering system

The clustering of spatio-temporal patterns are essential for many applications. Established from the biological analogy of the cortex, the parametrically coupled logistic map network (PCLMN) provides a viable solution to the clustering problem. To engineer for a single-chip spatio-temporal pattern clustering system, the highly modular PCLMN is designed in analog circuit. In this paper, the 0.6 μm 5 V CMOS design of the processing element is presented. The analog design employs self-calibration techniques to improve the accuracy and robustness of the nonlinear circuits. A fabricated element covers a die area of 0.55 mm², and consumes 240 mW power at 5 V supply. After calibration, simulation and testing results show that the element fulfills the system-level requirement of the Cort-X model for driving signals up to 1 MHz.     

Applications of the psychotherapy phase model to clinically significant deterioration.

While previous research on deterioration has focused on identifying individuals at risk for negative outcomes, little is known about the nature or pattern by which deterioration occurs. The problem of deterioration is especially salient in training clinics; a setting in which higher deterioration rates have been reported. Two studies were designed to test the applicability of the phase model to deterioration in a training clinic and to replicate the model with a training clinic referral-base sample. In Study 1, the course of therapy was monitored for 135 clients. For the 38 clients who deteriorated during therapy, a model where increased symptoms (demediation) reliably preceded both decreased functioning (dehabilitation) and decreased well-being (demoralization) was found. In Study 2, the same three phases were prospectively monitored for 914 undergraduate students on a weekly basis throughout a single semester. For the 158 individuals who deteriorated during this time, a model where demediation reliably preceded dehabilitation, which preceded demoralization was found. These results have clinical implications for the use of tailored intervention strategies focusing on the deterioration phases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analysis of a complete DNA–protein affinity landscape

Properties of biological fitness landscapes are of interest to a wide sector of the life sciences, from ecology to genetics to synthetic biology. For biomolecular fitness landscapes, the information we currently possess comes primarily from two sources: sparse samples obtained from directed evolution experiments; and more fine-grained but less authentic information from ‘in silico’ models (such as NK-landscapes). Here we present the entire protein-binding profile of all variants of a nucleic acid oligomer 10 bases in length, which we have obtained experimentally by a series of highly parallel on-chip assays. The resulting complete landscape of sequence-binding pairs, comprising more than one million binding measurements in duplicate, has been analysed statistically using a number of metrics commonly applied to synthetic landscapes. These metrics show that the landscape is rugged, with many local optima, and that this arises from a combination of experimental variation and the natural structural properties of the oligonucleotides.