Petroleum-based plastics have become a big problem in many countries because of their non-degradability and that they become microplastics in the environment. This study focused on the optimization of production medium and conditions of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), which are biodegradable bioplastics and are accumulated in microbial cells. Among 341 isolates from 40 composted soil samples, the best isolate was the HD34 strain, which was identified using morphological, molecular, and biochemical methods. The results showed that the strain was most closely related to Ensifer adhaerens LMG20216T, with 99.6% similarity. For optimization of production medium and conditions using response surface methodology, it exhibited an optimal medium containing 3.99% (w/v) of potato dextrose broth (PDB) and 1.54% (w/v) of D-glucose with an adjusted initial pH of 9.0. The optimum production was achieved under culture conditions of a temperature of 28 °C, inoculum size of 2.5% (v/v), and a shaking speed... [more]

Equipping wastes with interesting properties in response to the circular economy could release environmental burdens by reducing resource exploitation and material manufacturing. In this study, we demonstrated that the waste regenerated activated carbon (RAC) could become micro-/mesopore-dominant through a simple surfactant/gel modification. This was achieved by associating carbon precursors, such as commercially available low-cost surfactants/methyl cellulose thickening reagents, with the pores of RAC. Following heat treatment, associated carbon precursors were carbonized, hence modifying the microstructure of RAC to be micro-/mesopore-dominant. The surfactant modification gave rise to a micropore-dominant RAC by increasing the micropore volume (PVmicro) together with significantly decreasing the mesopore volume (PVmeso) and macropore volume (PVmacro). In contrast, gel modification led to mesopore-rich RAC by blocking micropores with carbonized methyl cellulose and a surfactant matrix... [more]

The present study evaluated the effect of gum arabic (GA) edible coating pretreatment on the quality of dried red raspberries. Red raspberries were independently pretreated with varied concentrations of GA (3, 5, and 10% (w/v) by dipping for 2 min before oven-drying at 60 °C until the moisture content was below 8% (18−24 h). Raspberries dipped in distilled water were used as the control samples. Quality attributes including colour, moisture content, water activity (aw), hardness, hygroscopicity, rehydration capacity, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), pH, anthocyanin composition, ascorbic acid (AA) content, total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity, peroxidase (POD), and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzyme activity were investigated. GA pretreatment of the raspberries improved the aw (lower), hardness (lower), TSS, TSS/TA ratio, BrimA, AA content, and TPC, whilst it significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the colour properties (redness, chroma, hue angle, and total colo... [more]

Pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) stations are an efficient emission-free technology to balance renewable energy generation instabilities. The pump-turbine is a core component of PSH stations requiring frequent start-up, shutdown, and working conditions for regulation tasks, making it prone to instabilities. Based on entropy production theory and vortex dynamics, we analyzed the energy loss characteristics for three working conditions of the pump, pump brake, and turbine when shutting down the pump-turbine. The results showed that the entropy production and vorticity of the spiral casing and draft tube remain almost constant, while the entropy production and vorticity of the runner region substantially change from the late pump braking to the late turbine condition. The entropy production and vorticity are derived from the guide vane transitioning to the runner flow channel through the vaneless space. The change law of energy loss through entropy production agrees with the change law of... [more]

Heavy metal pollution in soil seriously harms human health and animal and plant growth. Among them, cadmium pollution is one of the most serious issues. As a promising remediation material for cadmium pollution in soil, functionalized biochar has attracted wide attention in the last decade. This paper summarizes the preparation technology of biochar, the existing forms of heavy metals in soil, the remediation mechanism of biochar for remediating cadmium contamination in soil, and the factors affecting the remediation process, and discusses the latest research advances of functionalized biochar for remediating cadmium contamination in soil. Finally, the challenges encountered by the implementation of biochar for remediating Cd contamination in soil are summarized, and the prospects in this field are highlighted for its expected industrial large-scale implementation.

Desalination is set to become a major source of drinking water in several Middle Eastern countries over the coming decades. Solar distillation is a simple power-independent method of water desalination, which can be carried out in active or passive modes. This study is among the first attempts to investigate the possibility of desalinating brackish groundwater resources under the threat of saltwater intrusion in the southern areas of Razavi Khorasan province in Iran. For this purpose, a pilot solar distillation unit was constructed to analyze the effects of the unit orientation, depth of the water pool, atmospheric conditions, input salinity, and flow continuity on the solar distillation performance. The results showed that the unit exhibited the highest efficiency when it had a 3 cm deep water pool. It was oriented facing southward while operating a continuous flow for at least 3 days under sunny weather conditions. It was found that among the studied parameters, the unit orientation... [more]

is an emerging multidrug-resistant yeast with high mortality rate, especially in patients with underlying co-morbidities. It has been known to contaminate the environment and colonize human skin for prolonged periods in healthcare settings leading to difficult-to-control outbreaks. However, there is limited literature on the efficacy of different disinfectants/antiseptics, which can effectively decontaminate the environment and decolonize patients to prevent the spread of C. auris. This review highlights recommendations available in the literature for detection and control of C. auris in healthcare settings. Detection of C. auris by biochemical and automated methods has often been misleading. Availability of C. auris-specific PCR can prove to be a more reliable technique for detection of C. auris. Control measures for transmission of C. auris include use of registered hospital grade disinfectant active against Clostridium difficile cleaning the environment and equipment and chlorhexidi... [more]

Petroleum spills and land contamination are becoming increasingly common around the world. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other pollutants found in petroleum are constantly migrating underground, making their migration in soil a hot research topic. Therefore, it is of great significance to evaluate the migratory process of petroleum hydrocarbons in petroleum-polluted soil to clarify its ecological and environmental risks. In this study, Phenanthrene (PHE) was used as a typical pollutant of PAHs. The soil was gathered from three typical oilfields in China, and a soil column apparatus was built to simulate the vertical migration of PHE in the soil. The migration law and penetration effect of PHE in various environmental conditions of soil were investigated by varying the ionic strength (IS), pH, particle size, and type of soil. According to the literature, pH has no discernible effect on the migration of PHE. The migration of PHE was adversely and positively linked with chan... [more]

Minimizing the makespan is an important research topic in manufacturing engineering because it accounts for significant production expenses. In bakery manufacturing, ovens are high-energy-consuming machines that run throughout the production time. Finding an optimal combination of makespan and oven idle time in the decisive objective space can result in substantial financial savings. This paper investigates the hybrid no-wait flow shop problems from bakeries. Production scheduling problems from multiple bakery goods manufacturing lines are optimized using Pareto-based multi-objective optimization algorithms, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), and a random search algorithm. NSGA-II improved NSGA, leading to better convergence and spread of the solutions in the objective space, by removing computational complexity and adding elitism and diversity strategies. Instead of a single solution, a set of optimal solutions represents the trade-offs between objectives, makespan and... [more]

The combined disinfection process of ultraviolet and sodium hypochlorite has more advantages than the single disinfection method in reducing the disinfectant dosage, shortening the reaction time, and resisting the impact of water quality changes and inhibiting the light reactivation of microorganisms. Given this, using the secondary effluent of a sewage plant as the research object, the disinfection efficiency of the combined process of ultraviolet and sodium hypochlorite was investigated. The experimental results showed that the inactivation effect of UV followed by sodium hypochlorite on fecal coliform and the inhibition of microbial photoreactivation was more significant than that of simultaneous disinfection of UV and sodium hypochlorite disinfection. When the UV dose was 24 mJ/cm2, after disinfection with UV followed by sodium hypochlorite, only 1 mg/L of sodium hypochlorite was required to be added, and a contact reaction time of 1 min for the fecal coliform index to meet the fir... [more]

In June 2021, the United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE) hosted the first-ever Hydrogen Shot Summit, which lasted for two days. More than 3000 stockholders around the world were convened at the summit to discuss how low-cost clean hydrogen production would be a huge step towards solving climate change. Hydrogen is a dynamic fuel that can be used across all industrial sectors to lower the carbon intensity. By 2030, the summit hopes to have developed a means to reduce the current cost of clean hydrogen by 80%; i.e., to USD 1 per kilogram. Because of the importance of clean hydrogen towards carbon neutrality, the overall DOE budget for Fiscal Year 2021 is USD 35.4 billion and the total budget for DOE hydrogen activities in Fiscal Year 2021 is USD 285 million, representing 0.81% of the total DOE budget for 2021. The DOE hydrogen budget of 2021 is estimated to increase to USD 400 million in Fiscal Year 2022. The global hydrogen market is growing, and the US is playing an active role... [more]

The reverse push-the-bit rotary steerable method based on the principle of a “labor-saving lever” provides a feasible technical solution for further improving trajectory control ability of the rotary steerable drilling system, further prolonging the system’s service life and further increasing the system’s drilling speed. In order to reveal the working characteristics of such a method deeply, the influence of the key structural parameters of the rotary steerable drilling system on its trajectory control ability is studied based on the finite element method. The results show that, with the certain distance from the bit to the centralizer, the structural parameters of the flexible joint, the distance from the flexible joint to the paranoid mechanism, and the distance from the paranoid mechanism to the centralizer are the main factors to affect trajectory control ability. Reducing the stiffness of the flexible joint, shortening the distance from the flexible joint to the paranoid mechanis... [more]

The problem of global warming and its relationship with human activity is increasingly evident [...]

In view of the problem that special gondola cars are generally insufficient for the actual transportation of coke, and in order to improve the transportation efficiency and reduce the transportation cost, the 80 t depressed-center gondola car for coke transportation is designed by the anti-fatigue design method in this paper. The car body with a supporting bar and the car body without a supporting bar are simulated and analyzed by the finite element method; the results show that there are stress mutations at the transition area of the two key welds, especially at the 110 mm of weld 1. The fatigue lives of the two car body schemes are evaluated by Miner linear cumulative damage theory, spectrum and S-N curve in AAR standard, and load spectrum of the Daqin line and S-N curve in BSI standard. The results show that the 80 t depressed-center gondola car body with a supporting bar is the best scheme. In addition, the fatigue damage results show that the vertical load spectrum of AAR is worse... [more]

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes have experienced significant technological developments over the past decade. Today, 3D-printed metal parts can almost achieve the mechanical properties of conventionally manufactured components; process times have been shortened, and the range of available materials has been widely expanded. The decision between conventional manufacturing and AM is therefore becoming more complex, considering technical and economic criteria along the entire product life cycle. To reflect the vision of the manufacturer, each decision needs to be based on individual preferences and strategies. The present research introduces a standardised and systemised multi-criteria decision-making process to choose between additive and conventional production. Multi-criteria decision models from within the literature are analysed and a holistic decision matrix is developed based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The key novelty of the present research is the consideration... [more]

In the present study, carotenoids were recovered from processing sweet corn by-products (SCB). The total carotenoid content determined in the SCB extract was 1.19 mg/100 g DW, and the principal carotenoids identified by the HPLC technique were zeaxanthin, β-cryptoxanthin and lutein. Freeze- and spray-drying techniques were applied for the encapsulation of SCB extract; for this purpose, four different wall materials were used: two proteins (soy and pea) and two carbohydrates (maltodextrin and inulin). The physicochemical characteristics of eight encapsulates were determined to assess their stability. The obtained results indicate that, by using the freeze-drying method, better water activity, moisture content as well as encapsulation efficiency were achieved. Spray-drying resulted in better flowing properties. All obtained encapsulates were microbiologically safe for food applications due to the fact that the obtained results are in agreement with the requirements for consumer safety, i... [more]

The multilevel inverters (MLIs) are capable of handling large quantities of power and generating high-quality output voltages. Consequently, the size of the filters is reduced, and the circuitry is simplified. As a result, they have a diverse range of uses in the industrial sector, especially in smart grids. The input voltage boosting feature is required to utilize the MLI with renewable energy. In addition, a large number of components are required to attain higher output voltage levels, which increases the cost of the circuit and weight. A variety of MLI topologies have been identified to reduce losses, device quantity, and device ratings. The selective harmonic elimination (SHE) approaches reduce distinct lower order harmonics by computing the ideal switching angles. This research presents a nine−level Packed E−Cell (PEC−9) inverter that uses selective harmonic elimination to eliminate total harmonic distortion. In order to calculate the best switching angle, the reptile search algo... [more]

Natural gas hydrates (NGHs) have been recognized as a potential substitute for traditional fossil fuels. Mining NGH reservoirs can decrease the strength of the reservoirs, especially while improving production, and the double-well mining of NGHs also significantly reduces the strength of reservoirs. This study develops a thermofluid-solid multifield coupling model for mining NGHs through depressurization while considering the NGH decomposition kinetics and physical properties of NGH reservoirs. The influence of the formation responses and burial conditions on the slope stability in the depressurization process of NGHs is analyzed by combining it with the finite-element strength-reduction method. Results show that the decomposition zones of NGHs are nonuniformly distributed in space and have an irregular prismatic shape. The pore pressure propagates from the wellbores to the surrounding areas, forming cylindrical high-pressure-drop zones. Plastic zones first appear in the decomposition... [more]

This research in vivo assessed the impact of the ethanolic extract of Annona muricata (A. muricata) on the histopathology, immunohistochemistry, and biochemistry of thioacetamide (TAA)-induced liver cirrhosis in Sprague Dawley rats. The rats, gavaged precisely with two doses of A. muricata (250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) with TAA, presented a substantial reduction in the liver index and hepatocyte propagation, with much lower cell injury. These groups showed meaningfully down-regulated proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in the liver and spleen, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-β1) in liver parenchymal tissue. The liver homogenate displayed enhanced antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activity, along with a decrease in malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. The serum levels of bilirubin, total protein, albumin, and liver enzymes alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)... [more]

Understanding the behaviour of cell metabolism is the crucial key in bioprocess development and optimization, as well as in the development of efficient therapies [...]

Test suite code coverage is often used as an indicator for test suite capability in detecting faults. However, earlier studies that have explored the correlation between code coverage and test suite effectiveness have not addressed this correlation evolutionally. Moreover, some of these works have only addressed small sized systems, or systems from the same domain, which makes the result generalization process unclear for other domain systems. Software refactoring promotes a positive consequence in terms of software maintainability and understandability. It aims to enhance the software quality by modifying the internal structure of systems without affecting their external behavior. However, identifying the refactoring needs and which level should be executed is still a big challenge to software developers. In this paper, the authors explore the effectiveness of employing a support vector machine along with two optimization algorithms to predict software refactoring at the class level.... [more]

A novel process path is proposed to produce glycolic acid (GA) from CO2 as the feedstock, including CO2 capture, power-to-hydrogen, CO2 hydrogenation to methanol, methanol oxidation to formaldehyde, and formaldehyde carbonylation units. The bottlenecks are discussed from the perspectives of carbon utilization, CO2 emissions, total site energy integration, and techno-economic analysis. The carbon utilization ratio of the process is 82.5%, and the CO2 capture unit has the largest percentage of discharge in carbon utilization. Among the indirect emissions of each unit, the CO2 hydrogenation to methanol has the largest proportion of indirect carbon emissions, followed by the formaldehyde carbonylation to glycolic acid and the CO2 capture. After total site energy integration, the utility consumption is 1102.89 MW for cold utility, 409.67 MW for heat utility, and 45.98 MW for power. The CO2 hydrogenation to methanol makes the largest contribution to utility consumption due to the multi-stage... [more]

: The use of herbal extracts could represent an advantageous approach for treating sleeping disorders, especially in mild-to-moderate conditions, before the onset of a specific therapy with first-line drugs. Specifically, the focus was posed about the use of extracts from Valeriana officinalis, Ziziphus jujuba, and Humulus lupulus. Multiple studies demonstrated the efficacy of these medicinal plants to positively manage insomnia symptoms. Additionally, their efficacy in the treatment of sleeping disorders could also be improved by their pharmacological association. In the present study, extracts from Valeriana officinalis, Ziziphus jujuba, Humulus lupulus, melatonin, and their pharmacological association, Vagonotte® MEL, were studied for potential application in the treatment of insomnia. Methods: The extracts and melatonin were tested on hypothalamic neurons and tissue for evaluating biocompatibility and protective and neuromodulatory effects. The neuromodulatory effects were evaluate... [more]

This study aimed to investigate the chemical composition of steam distillate essential oil and corresponding hydrolate obtained from S. officinalis grown in Serbia, as well as the influence of weather conditions (temperature and precipitations) on their chemical profiles. Furthermore, their antimicrobial activity was investigated in vitro. The main compounds in essential oil were cis-thujone, followed by camphor, trans-thujone, and 1,8-cineole, while hydrolate was slightly different from the essential oil, with camphor, cis-thujone, and 1,8-cineole as the main compounds. Among the eight respiratory-associated microorganisms, Klebsiella oxytoca was the most sensitive to the tested EOs (minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC)/minimal bactericidal/fungicidal concentration (MBC/MFC) were 14.20 and 28.4 μL mL−1, respectively). MIC and MBC values of other tested bacteria ranged between 28.40 and 227.25 μL mL−1 while for Candida albicans MIC/MFC ranged from 28.40/56.81 to 56.81−113.63 μL mL−1.... [more]

A three-dimensional computational study of double-diffusive natural convection was conducted to explore the impact of tilt on the thermal and solutal performance of a floating pyramidal solar still filled with an air-steam mixture. In the present work, the still is cooled from the upper walls and is maintained at a low vapor concentration. The bottom wall of the still is maintained at a hot temperature and high concentration. Four different models of baffles placed in the upper region of the solar still have been studied. The mathematical formulation of the equations governing the problem is based on the vector current potential -vorticity formalism. The numerical method of finite volumes is used. The effect of Rayleigh and tilt angle of the floating solar still on the flow structure, iso-temperatures, iso-concentrations, and heat and mass transfer rates were examined. The most relevant results of this study are (i) an uncooled air-vapor mixture outlet was observed during tilting for t... [more]