Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surface energetics of adsorbent-biomass interactions during expanded bed chromatography : implications for process performance

Common limitations encountered during the direct recovery of bioproducts from an unclarified feedstock are related to the presence of biomass in such processing systems. Biomass related effects can be described as biomass-to-support interaction and cell-to-cell aggregation. In the current thesis work biomass related effects were studied in an important integrated primary unit operation mode viz Expanded bed adsorption (EBA), which was proved to suffer from the detrimental effects by the presence of biomass. Current work involves the investigation and understanding of the biomass interaction and aggregation onto various EBA process surfaces at local or molecular level. In doing so Streamline materialsTM of various chemistries were taken as process surface and intact yeast cell, yeast homogenates, and disrupted bacterial paste were employed as model colloids to understand their deposition and subsequent aggregation. Deposition and aggregation was studied with surface energetics according to XDLVO theory. These predictions based on the application of XDLVO theory were confirmed by independent experimental methods, like biomass deposition experiments and laser diffraction spectroscopy. Biomass components and beaded adsorbents were characterized by contact angle determinations with three diagnostic liquids and zeta potential measurements. Subsequently, free energy of interaction vs. distance profiles between interacting surfaces was calculated in aqueous media provided by its operating mobile phase. The effect of various chromatographic conditions based on the mode of operation was explored in relation to yeast interaction and aggregation. Calculations indicated that the interaction and aggregation is mainly due to the existence of a reversible secondary energy minimum. The extent and depth of pocket varied based on the operating process conditions for different interacting pairs. Understanding biomass-related effects will overcome or at least mitigate the process limitations. Exploring the effect of various types of additives for their ability to inhibit either biomass deposition, cell aggregation, or a combination of both effects, a non ionic polymer PVP 360 was found to alleviate biomass deposition on weak anion exchangers. The predictions made by the XDLVO theory were well correlated with the physicochemical parameter α, in relation to ion exchangers where only interaction is happening. On the other hand a discrete modifications of XDLVO energies was observed with the lump parameter α for hydrophobic and pseudo affinity process surfaces where interaction and aggregation is taking place. Establishing a correlation defined a safe operational windows for EBA process when U ≤ |50| kT and α ≤ 0.15. Fundamental knowledge which could predict feedstock behaviour during primary unit operations of downstream processing would alleviate the current bottleneck during processing of bioproducts.
Machine-learning adsorption on binary alloy surfaces for catalyst screening

Over the last few years, machine learning is gradually becoming an essential approach for the investigation of heterogeneous catalysis. As one of the important catalysts, binary alloys have attracted extensive attention for the screening of bifunctional catalysts. Here we present a holistic framework for machine learning approach to rapidly predict adsorption energies on the surfaces of metals and binary alloys. We evaluate different machine-learning methods to understand their applicability to the problem and combine a tree-ensemble method with a compressed-sensing method to construct decision trees for about 60000 adsorption data. Compared to linear scaling relations, our approach enables to make more accurate predictions lowering predictive root-mean-square error by a factor of two and more general to predict adsorption energies of various adsorbates on thousands of binary alloys surfaces, thus paving the way for the discovery of novel bimetallic catalysts.
Development of Oral Communicative Competence: A Teachers’ Perspective

This study was an attempt to determine the point to which the English language textbook, “English for Class 8” prescribed by the Punjab Textbook Board fulfills the learners ‘language learning needs of English as foreign language in Pakistan. The study aimed to explore as to what degree the suggested textbook increases the likelihood of learning the language and the diligent effort to development oral communicative competence (OCC) among the target learners. A quantitative approach enabled the researcher to comprehensively answer the research question. The results indicate that the relevant course book fails to facilitate the target learners to acquire English as foreign language to enable them to use the language for communicative purposes. The tasks presented in the textbook, do not focus on sociolinguistic and extended verbal expression in speech of the target language. By including tasks that challenge the learners to engage themselves in producing meaningful utterances, the present English language textbook can become even better a tool to develop speech proficiency.
Enhanced raman spectrometry for environmental gas sensing and human breath analysis

Gas sensing techniques allow for groundbreaking studies in the field of plant-physiological processes, soil-bacteria interactions, as well as early stage monitoring of disease states via human breath analysis. Easy-to-operate, miniaturized, on-site, and cost-efficient gas sensors have attracted great interest in the scientific community in the last years. In this work an innovative fiber-enhanced Raman multi-gas sensor was designed, developed, and tested for manifold applications in the field of clinical diagnosis and environmental science. By combining the versatile Raman spectroscopic technique with state-of-the-art low loss microstructured optical fibers (e.g. HC-PCF), which show very low sample demand, a tremendous signal enhancement was achieved for potential monitoring of a complex volatile anesthetics matrix, or for the diagnosis of metabolic diseases including lactose intolerance, fructose malabsorption, or SIBO. The versatility of the new sensor allows simultaneous identification and quantitative monitoring of various climate-relevant gases and volatiles, especially of stable isotope tracers (e.g. 13C, 15N) and homonuclear molecules (e.g. H2, O2, N2) in a high dynamic concentration range and high chemical selectivity, without cross-sensitivity and the need for sample preparation. Furthermore, the application of a miniaturized, cavity-based Raman multi-gas sensor was applied for profound insights into plant functioning such as the link of more drought-tolerant pine to its greater flexibility in substrate switch for plant respiration under drought and shading. Future investigations on device miniaturization, cost reduction, low maintenance costs, easy operability and calibration, together with low power consumption will enable these Raman instruments further to be used for the elucidation of complex environmental processes and easy-to-apply, point-of-care diagnosis of metabolic disorders and diseases. Thus, it can fill the gap of already well-established analytical techniques.
The potential of attached growth of microalgae on solid surface for biomass and lipid production

Microalgae cultivation is usually performed via suspended growth system; however, the subsequent harvesting technologies are either costly or energy intensive. Herein, attached growth of Chlorella vulgaris was investigated using low-cost supporting materials (polystyrene foam and cotton duct) to ease the microalgae harvesting process. Cotton duct served as a better supporting material than polystyrene foam as it promoted microalgae attachment. Evidently, the attached cultivation performed on cotton duct granted higher biomass yield (16.40 g/m2) than the attached cultivation with polystyrene foam (11.70 g/m2) after 14 days of cultivation. From the studied range of 0.1 – 0.3 v/v%, the optimal inoculum concentration for the attached cultivation of C. vulgaris on cotton duct was 0.3 v/v%. After 14 days of cultivation, the optimized attached cultivation of C. vulgaris was capable to produce a biomass yield of 18.2 g/m2. The lipid content of dried microalgae from optimized attached cultivation (43 wt%) was higher than that of suspended cultivation (32.7 wt%).
Hydrogen Peroxide Measurement in Arabidopsis Root Tissue Using Amplex Red

[Abstract] This protocol describes the measurement of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) content in Arabidopsis root tissue by using the Amplex® Red Hydrogen Peroxide/Peroxidase Assay Kit. When root tissue is disrupted and resuspended in phosphate buffer, H2O2 is released from the cells. The obtained root extracts containing H2O2 can be mixed with a solution containing Amplex® Red reagent (10-acetyl3,7-dihydrophenoxazine). In the presence of horseradish peroxidase, the Amplex® Red reagent reacts with H2O2 in a 1:1 stoichiometry. The resulting product is the red-fluorescent compound resorufin which can be detected fluorometrically or spectrophotometrically. Our protocol is based on the manual of the Amplex® Red Hydrogen Peroxide/Peroxidase Assay Kit and describes a step-by-step procedure with a detailed description of the necessary controls and data analysis. We have also included modifications of the protocol, notes and examples that intend to aid the user in easily reproducing the assay with their own samples.
Tip‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) on double perovskite La2CoMnO6 thin films: field enhancement and depolarization effects

Polarization-dependent tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) was carried out on double perovskite La2CoMnO6 (LCMO) thin films to determine the contributions of the enhancement by the excitation of surface plasmon polariton and tip-induced polarization effects. Due to B-site ordering and the resulting monoclinic P121/n1 structure, the spectra exhibit a strong Ag mode around 644 cm−1 originated from (Co/Mn)O6 stretching vibrations. The TERS contrast C, defined as the ratio of the total-field (the sum of the near field and the far field) to the far-field intensity, up to C ~60–110 for a cross-polarized configuration (incident light polarization perpendicular to the detected one), reveals a possible breakdown of polarization-dependent selection rules for the Raman scattering due to a tip-induced near-field depolarization component. We disentangled a significant enhancement for all observed modes in a parallel configuration with a TERS contrast of C ~2–5 due to general near-field amplification, strongly affected also by the film thickness. With B-site ordering and highly dielectric behavior, LCMO therefore provides an excellent test system to study TERS phenomena on oxide surfaces. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Combustion Instability Mechanism of a Reacting Jet in Cross Flow at Gas Turbine Operating Conditions

Modern gas turbine designs often include lean premixed combustion for its emissions benefits; however, this type of combustion process is susceptible to self-excited combustion instabilities that can lead to damaging heat loads and system vibrations. This study focuses on identifying a mechanism of combustion instability of a reacting jet in cross flow, a flow feature that is widely used in the design of gas turbine combustion systems. Experimental results from a related study are used to validate and complement three numerical tools that are applied in this study â€" self-excited Large Eddy Simulations, 3D thermoacoustic modeling, and 1D instability modeling. Based on the experimental and numerical results, a mechanism was identified that included a contribution from the jet in cross flow impedance as well as an overall jet flame time lag. The jet impedance is simply a function of the acoustic properties of the geometry while the flame time lag can be separated into jet velocity, equivalence ratio, and strain fluctuations, depending on the operating conditions and setup. For the specific application investigated in this study, it was found that the jet velocity and equivalence ratio fluctuations are important, however, the effect of the strain fluctuations on the heat release are minimal due to the high operating pressure. A mathematical heat release model was derived based on the proposed mechanism and implemented into a 3D thermoacoustic tool as well as a 1D instability tool. A three-point stability trend observed in the experimental data was correctly captured by the 3D thermoacoustic tool using the derived heat release model. Stability maps were generated with the 1D instability tool to demonstrate regions of stable operation that can be achieved as a function of the proposed mechanism parameters. The relative effect of the reacting jet in cross flow on the two dominant unstable modes was correctly captured in the stability maps. While additional mechanisms for a reacting jet in cross flow are possible at differing flow conditions, the mechanism proposed in this study was shown to correctly replicate the stability trends observed in the experimental tests and provides a fundamental understanding that can be applied for combustion system design.
Assessment genetic diversity of einkorn genotypes (Triticum monococcum L.) by gliadin electrophoresis

The genetic diversity of gliadins in twenty two einkorn accessions preserved under long-term seed storage condition in the National gene bank of Bulgaria were evaluated, using acid polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis (Acid-PAGE). In total, 64 polymorphic bands and 22 gliadin patterns were identified. Thirty four different mobility bands and 21 gliadin patterns were identified in the ω-gliadin zone, 12 bands and 16 patterns were noted in the γ-gliadins, 17 patterns and 12 mobility bands were found for β-gliadins and six bands with five different α -gliadin patterns were determined. The genetic diversity index (H) was the highest for ω-gliadins (0.950), followed by β-gliadins (0.924) and γ- (0.914), respectively and the lowest value was detected in α-gliadin patterns (0.120). Cluster analysis based on the UPGMA method and Nei and Li similarity coefficients classified all the genotypes into 3 main groups. No relationships between genetic diversity, geographic origin and the genotypes were observed. The results of cluster analysis justify the high level of genetic variation among investigated einkorn accessions.
Synthesis and studies on core–shell type anion exchange resins based on a hybrid polymeric support

In pursuit for new materials for recovery of noble metals, novel anion exchangers, based on new type of core–shell polymeric supports have been synthesized. The designed matrices, with reactive chloromethyl groups concentrated on a surface of the polymeric base, the Amberlite XAD-4 adsorbent, have been modified using ethylenediamine and polyethyleneimine. The obtained ion exchangers were employed in processes of sorption of gold, platinum, and palladium chlorocomplexes, then, they were compared to similar resins based on volumetric polymeric supports. The studies covered porosity measurements, determination of sorption behavior in the presence of counter ions as well as kinetic and column studies. Ultimately, an attempt to access a core–shell character of the resins has been made using digital-optical microscopy. The proceeded analyses allowed to determine the localization of the resins’ functionalities and their advantages over traditional ion exchange resins. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43841.
Technology capability and information sharing: effects on the sustainable environmental performance of industrial companies

Purpose – To analyze the impact exerted by the technological capability and the influence exercised by information sharing on sustainable environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative research using sample with 148 industrial companies and application of multivariate analysis for verification of hypotheses. Findings – The results indicate that technological capability has a direct and positive impact on environmental performance and information sharing has a significant moderating effect on this impact. Research limitations/implications – The research investigates direct impact and moderation relationships, not extending the analysis to other types of relationships, effects and influences, which may be investigated in future research. Practical implications – The simultaneous influence of technological capability and information sharing on sustainable environmental performance contributes to broadening the set of variables and relationships with potential to boost organizational performance. Social implications – Managers of organizations can improve sustainable performance by building technological capability and encouraging the sharing of knowledge and information by their teams. Originality/value – This study explores simultaneous effects of organizational variables with potential to drive sustainable environmental performance, adding new possibilities for analysis and identification of factors that can interfere with organizational performance.
Purification of nucleic acids from gels

23.1 Introduction 53723.1.1 Separation of Nucleic Acids by Gel Electrophoresis 53823.1.1.1 Agarose Gel Electrophoresis 53823.1.1.2 Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis 54123.1.2 Recovery of Nucleic Acids from Gels 54223.1.2.1 Electroelution of DNA 54223.1.2.2 DNA Adsorption 54223.1.2.3 Diffusion of DNA 54223.1.2.4 Gel Liquifi cation to Recover DNA 54223.1.2.5 Purifi cation of RNA from Gels 54323.2 Methods 54323.2.1 Preparation and Running of Gel Electrophoresis 54323.2.1.1 Agarose Gel Electrophoresis 54323.2.1.2 Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis 54323.2.2 Purifi cation of DNA from Agarose Gels 54323.2.2.1 Electroelution 54323.2.2.2 Electrophoresis onto DEAE-Cellulose Membrane 54623.2.2.3 Use of Liquid Silica Matrices 54723.2.2.4 Use of Column Matrices 54723.2.2.5 Use of Low Melting/Gelling Temperature Agarose Gels 54723.2.3 Purifi cation of DNA from Polyacrylamide Gels 54923.2.3.1 Use of Liquid Silica Matrices 54923.2.3.2 Crush and Soak Method 55023.2.4 Purifi cation of RNA from Gels 55123.2.4.1 Electroelution of RNA 55123.2.4.2 Diffusion of RNA 55123.2.4.3 Isolation of RNA from Low Melting/Gelling Temperature Agarose Gels 55223.3 Future Development Trends 552Acknowledgment 552R e f eren c es 553
HPIPE NX: Boosting CNN Inference Acceleration Performance with AI-Optimized FPGAs

With the ever-increasing compute demands of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, there is extensive interest in leveraging field-programmable gate-arrays (FPGAs) to quickly deploy hardware accelerators for the latest convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Recent FPGA architectures are also evolving to better serve the needs of AI, but accelerators need extensive re-design to leverage these new features. The Stratix 10 NX chip by Intel is a new FPGA that replaces traditional DSP blocks with in-fabric AI tensor blocks that provide 15x more multipliers and up to 143 TOPS of performance, at the cost of lower precision (INT8) and significant restrictions on how many operands can be fed to the multipliers from the programmable routing. In this paper, we explore different CNN accelerator structures to leverage the tensor blocks, considering the various tensor block modes, operand bandwidth restrictions, and on-chip memory restrictions. We incorporate the most performant techniques into HPIPE, a layer-pipelined and sparse-aware CNN accelerator for FPGAs. We enhance HPIPE's software compiler to restructure the CNN computations and on-chip memory layout to take advantage of the additional multipliers offered by the new tensor block architecture, while also avoiding stalls due to data loading restrictions. We achieve cycle-by-cycle speedups in tensor mode of up to $\mathbf{8}. \mathbf{3}\mathbf{x}$ for Mobilenet-v1 versus the original HPIPE design using conventional DSPs. On the FPGA, we achieve a throughput of 28,541 and 29,429 images/s on Mobilenet-v1 and Mobilenet-v2 respectively, outperforming all previous FPGA accelerators by at least 4.0x, including one on an AI-optimized Xilinx chip. We also outperform NVIDIA's V100 GPU, a machine learning targeted GPU on a similar process node with a $\mathbf{1}. \mathbf{7}\mathbf{x}$ larger die size, by up to 17x with a batch size of one and 1.3x with NVIDIA's largest reported batch size of 128.
Design of Portable Pocket Engineering Drafter

: During the process of flexible product enhancement and mechanical design, it is important to keep flexibility as huge as possible. One way to improve the flexibility in the mechanical component is by modifying the design of the mechanical units of the current product. Another way is to by add on application of mechanisms to the current product, which enables better utilization of resources and processes. This research paper describes the process of enhancing the knowledge of mechanical mechanism design system by aid of CATIA V5 software for the dimensioning, and development of an Engineering drafter model with two main flexible and foldable supports. In this research work, the design and the mechanical units of the drafter was undertaken. This drafter consists mainly of foldable stem bars with locks pins for folding and locking the stem bars, flip fiber ruler, steel bars and protractor scale. This methodology of modification in the mechanism of mechanical components made a huge development of flexibility in the current Engineering drafter. The main contribution of this paper is the above mentioned. Also, the main goal of this paper is to prove that standard computer-aided design by the aid of CATIA software systems needs to be expanded with these knowledge-based intellectual integrated systems to achieve higher levels of performance.
Intradialytic physical exercise in chronic kidney disease: a systematic review of health outcomes

Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a general term for heterogeneous disorders that affect the structure and function of the kidney. Complications of CKD significantly limit exercise (Ex) tolerance by reducing functional capacity, endurance, and strength. However, the practice of regular Ex contributes to delaying the progression of CKD and stimulating improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Ex performed during the period of hemodialysis may be the best option when stimulating adherence and being under medical supervision. The purpose of the paper is to examine the effectiveness of intradialytic (iHD) Ex on health outcomes in patients with CKD by identifying the most appropriate component of Ex. Material and method: Systematic review, based on PRISMA guidelines, performing a structured search in Medline, SciELO and Cochrane Library Plus databases. Publications from the last 5 years relating iHD Ex and CKD up to 31 December 2019 were included. The methodological quality of the articles was evaluated using the McMaster critical review form. Results: We found 7 articles that described increases in endurance, upper and lower limb muscle strength, and HRQL of CKD patients providing emotional, social and psychological improvements. In addition, iHD Ex is able to control oxidative stress, inflammation, improve the lipid profile and stimulate endothelial progenitor cells, which together reduce the risk of mortality associated with multiple comorbidities in CKD patients, especially cardiovascular ones. Conclusions:Ex provides improvements in physical function and capacity, HRQL and biological markers. Aerobic Ex, muscle strength Ex and combined Ex programs are used.