Search Results (7)

The development of alternative energies has become a concern for all countries to ensure domestic energy supply and provide environmental friendliness. One of the providential alternative energies is biodiesel. Biodiesel, commonly stated as fatty acid alkyl ester (FAAE), is a liquid fuel intended to substitute petroleum diesel. Nevertheless, implementation of pure biodiesel is not recommended for conventional diesel engines. It holds poor values of cold flow properties, as the effect of high saturated FAAE content contributes to this constraint. Several processes have been proposed to enhance cold flow properties of biodiesel, but this work focuses on the skeletal isomerization process. This process rearranges the skeletal carbon chain of straight-chain FAAE into branched isomeric products to lower the melting point, related to the good cold flow behavior. This method specifically requires an acid catalyst to elevate the isomerization reaction rate. And then, sulfated tin(IV) oxide emerged as a solid superacid catalyst due to its superiority in acidity. The results of biodiesel isomerization over this catalyst and its modification with iron had not satisfied the expectation of high isomerization yield and significant CFP improvement. However, they emphasized that the skeletal isomers demonstrated minimum impact on biodiesel oxidation stability. They also affirmed the role of an acid catalyst in the reaction mechanism in terms of protonation, isomerization, and deprotonation. Furthermore, the metal promotion was theoretically necessary to boost the catalytic activity of this material. It initiated the dehydrogenation of linear hydrocarbon before protonation and terminated the isomerization by hydrogenating the branched carbon chain after deprotonation. Finally, the overall findings indicated promising prospects for further enhancement of catalyst performance and reusability. Full article

In the present research work, pectin was isolated from the peels of seven citrus fruits (Citrus limon, Citrus limetta, Citrus sinensis, Citrus maxima, Citrus jambhiri, Citrus sudachi, and Citrus hystrix) for a comparison of its physicochemical parameters and its potential use as a thickening agent, gelling agent, and food ingredient in food industries. Among the seven citrus fruits, the maximum yield of pectin was observed from Citrus sudachi, and the minimum yield of pectin was observed from Citrus maxima. The quality of each pectin sample was compared by using parameters such as equivalent weight, anhydrouronic acid (AUA) content, methoxy content, and degree of esterification. It was observed that all seven pectin samples had a high value of equivalent weight (more than 1000), suggesting that all the pectin samples had a high content of non-esterified galacturonic acid in the molecular chains, which provides viscosity and water binding properties. The methoxy content and degree of esterification of all the pectins was lower than 50%, which suggests that it cannot easily disperse in water and can form gel only in presence of divalent cations. The AUA content of all isolated pectins samples was above 65%, which suggests that the pectin was pure and can be utilized as a food ingredient in domestic foods and food industries. From the FTIR analysis of pectin, it was observed that the bond pattern of Citrus maxima, Citrus jambhiri, and Citrus hystrix was similar. The bond pattern of Citrus limon, Citrus limetta, and Citrus sinensis was similar. However, the bond pattern of Citrus sudachi was different from that of all other citrus fruits. The difference in the bond pattern was due to the hydrophobic nature of pectin purified from Citrus limon, Citrus limetta, Citrus sudachi, and Citrus sinensis and the hydrophilic nature of pectin purified from Citrus maxima, Citrus jambhiri, and Citrus hystrix. Hence, hydrophobic pectin can be utilized in the preparation of hydrogels, nanofibers, food packaging material, polysoaps, drug delivery agents, and microparticulate materials, whereas hydrophilic pectin can be utilized for the preparation of gelling and thickening agents. Full article

Along with global geopolitical complex, information network security issues and increased natural disasters, risk management should be well considered in the construction material industry to re-integrate and establish stiff and flexible supply chains in order to cope with emergencies in the future market. Taking the construction material industry in Taiwan as the research object, representative enterprises with artificial intelligence applied sustainable supply chain management are studied. With the Delphi method and data envelopment analysis, the public data of annual statistics reports of the enterprises are used for selecting the performance indicators of inputs and outputs. Empirical data analysis is also performed to provide reference for the improvement. The research results are summarized as follows. 1. Substituting various input/output index values into CCR and BCC models, the overall production efficiency and pure technical efficiency of enterprises are calculated; by dividing the two, the returns to scale of enterprises are acquired. 2. Critical factors in artificial intelligence applied sustainable supply chain management could be found out through sensitivity analysis. Using the rate of sensitivity change as the evaluation baseline, sensitive factors contain financial aspect, scale aspect, financial performance, and profit before tax. Finally, discussions are proposed according to the results, expecting to help domestic businesses in the construction material industry establish steady and flexible supply chains and present diversified procurement sources to reinforce the emergency defensive ability of the construction material industry. Full article

Joining global supply chain networks helps firms to enhance innovation performance as firms need to satisfy various standard requirements from overseas customers. From the global value chain theory, there is no evidence on what types of supply chain ownership structures help firms to achieve more innovation. This deficiency led us to investigate types of supply chain ownership structures, i.e., Pure Domestic Chain, Pure Joint Venture (JV) Chain, Pure Multinational Corporation (MNC) Chain, Export Chain, and Import Chain, that can help firms to achieve more innovation. One-way ANOVA is used to analyze 856 responses collected from the Thai manufacturing industry during 2012–2017. The results indicate that firms in the Pure MNC Chain have the highest levels of product and process innovation. There is less innovation for the Pure JV Chain, Export Chain, Import Chain, and Pure Domestic Chain, in decreasing order. This means that firms in global supply chain networks tend to have better innovation performance than firms in local supply chain networks. The innovation capabilities of local firms can be enhanced through knowledge transfer and knowledge co-creation by joining global supply chain networks. Full article

Previous studies have shown that Yunnan humped cattle have higher disease resistance than pure taurine cattle, such as Holsteins. However, there exists limited information about the molecular genetic basis underlying disease resistance differences between them. The objective of this study was to compare differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the liver and spleen tissues of Holstein and Yunnan humped cattle through comparative transcriptome analysis, using RNA-sequencing. In total, 1564 (647 up- and 917 down-regulated genes) and 1530 (716 up- and 814 down-regulated genes) DEGs were obtained in the liver and spleen tissues of Holstein and Yunnan humped cattle comparison groups, respectively. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis showed that the DEGs were mainly associated with the RIG-I signaling pathway, immune responses, major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I protein complex and complement activation, human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I (HTLV-I) infection. Some genes related to immune function, such as C1QB, CD55, MASP2, C4BPA, MAVS, NOD2, and CD46, were up-regulated in Yunnan humped cattle, while C2, SERPING1, SERPINE1, TIRAP, TLR2, and TLR6 were down-regulated. The expression levels of 11 selected DEGs, analyzed by quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), were consistent with the deep sequencing results by RNA-sequencing. Our results will provide a scientific basis and key technical support for disease-resistant breeding of domestic cattle. Full article

Codonopsis taxa, as a traditional Chinese medicinal and edible plant, has found expanding domestic and foreign applications in recent decades. However, the poor management in germplasm resources market has inevitably caused an unnecessary hybrid of the provenances. In order to clarify the hybrid characteristics of germplasm resources in the main production area, the Codonopsis cultivars collected from the provinces Gansu, Shannxi, Shanxi, and Hubei of China were researched, using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence technology. The confirmation of additive nucleotides based on the ITS sequencing of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) mixture was optimized and used to study the hybrid of Codonopsis cultivars. The results showed that when the ratio of PCR mixture increased up to 15 percent, the presence of a double peak in the sequencing electrophoresis map could be confirmed, suggesting the existence of additive nucleotides. According to the method above, 46 samples of Codonopsis cultivars collected during 2016 and 2017 were studied and compared with the samples collected from the year 2009 to 2010. All of the samples collected during 2016 and 2017 were hybridized and no genetic pure lines were found. In addition, the sites of variable base reduced greatly, concentrating at positions 122 and/or 226. These phenomena suggested that the genetic diversity of Codonopsis cultivars declined and the germplasm resources gradually converged. More attention should be paid to the reasonable exploitation and genetic breeding of Codonopsis taxa. Full article

Water is the most desirable and sparse resource in Gulf cooperation council (GCC) region. Utilization of point-of-use (POU) water treatment devices has been gaining huge market recently due to increase in knowledge of urban population on health related issues over contaminants in decentralized water distribution networks. However, there is no foolproof way of knowing whether the treated water is free of contaminants harmful for drinking and hence reliance on certified bottled water has increased worldwide. The bottling process right from treatment to delivery is highly unsustainable due to huge energy demand along the supply chain. As a step towards sustainability, we investigated various ways of coupling of membrane distillation (MD) process with solar domestic heaters for co-production of domestic heat and pure water. Performance dynamics of various integration techniques have been evaluated and appropriate configuration has been identified for real scale application. A solar combi MD (SCMD) system is experimentally tested for single household application for production 20 L/day of pure water and 250 L/day of hot water simultaneously without any auxiliary heating device. The efficiency of co-production system is compared with individual operation of solar heaters and solar membrane distillation. Full article