Enhanced <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">l</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">-</Emphasis>(+)-Lactic Acid Production by an Adapted Strain of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhizopus oryzae</Emphasis> using Corncob Hydrolysate

Corncob is an economic feedstock and more than 20 million tons of corncobs are produced annually in China. Abundant xylose can be potentially converted from the large amount of hemicellulosic materials in corncobs, which makes the crop residue an attractive alternative substrate for a value-added production of a variety of bioproducts. Lactic acid can be used as a precursor for poly-lactic acid production. Although current industrial lactic acid is produced by lactic acid bacteria using enriched medium, production by Rhizopus oryzae is preferred due to its exclusive formation of the l-isomer and a simple nutrition requirement by the fungus. Production of l-(+)-lactic acid by R. oryzae using xylose has been reported; however, its yield and conversion rate are poor compared with that of using glucose. In this study, we report an adapted R. oryzae strain HZS6 that significantly improved efficiency of substrate utilization and enhanced production of l-(+)-lactic acid from corncob hydrolysate. It increased l-(+)-lactic acid final concentration, yield, and volumetric productivity more than twofold compared with its parental strain. The optimized growth and fermentation conditions for Strain HZS6 were defined.     

钢渣与污泥协同资源化研究进展

钢渣和污泥作为传统大宗固体废弃物,始终面临处理成本高、回收利用率低等问题,但其内部含有大量可利用物质,具有较高的资源化利用价值,现已成为国内外的研究热点。为了提高钢渣与污泥绿色、高效、协同资源化利用,综述了近年来国内外钢渣在建筑、道路、水处理、农业等领域资源化利用的研究进展,立足固废无害化、减量化,从钢渣和污泥的资源化进行分析与总结,指出不同研究方法的特点和优劣,为固废资源化利用提供参考。并基于我国发展现状对钢渣与污泥资源化利用的未来发展方向进行了展望,以期为固废处理行业的良性发展提供一定的理论支撑。     

Environmental remediation by hydroxyapatite: Solid state synthesis utilizing waste chicken eggshell and adsorption experiment with Congo red dye

This study reports the adsorption efficacy of hydroxyapatite (HAp) for removing Congo Red (CR) dye from aqueous solution. HAp was synthesized utilizing chicken eggshell as a precursor of Ca source. Solid state synthesis method was implemented which comprised calcination at 950 °C (E-HAp950). XRD analysis confirmed the formation of bi-phasic HAp with 15.5% of β-TCP. Elemental composition was evaluated by XPS and EDX analysis. FESEM analysis revealed the particles are of plate and spherical shaped also confirmed by the TEM images. DLS particle size, zeta potential, BET surface area and point of zero charge were also evaluated. Adsorption efficacy of E-HAp950 for removing CR was evaluated by batch adsorption experiment. Maximum adsorption capacity (q_max) was found to be 9.64 mgg⁻¹ which was best explained by the non-linear fitting (R² = 0.98) of Langmuir isotherm. Adsorption kinetics profusely followed pseudo second order kinetic model (R² = 0.999) with q_{e (experimental)} being very much closer to q_{e (calculative)} for this model. Thus, hydroxyapatite prepared by utilizing eggshell waste through solid state method has the potential to remove toxic dyes.     

A resource recycling technique of hydrogen production from the catalytic degradation of organics in wastewater

A resource recycling technique of hydrogen production from the catalytic degradation of organics in wastewater by aqueous phase reforming (APR) has been proposed. It is worthy of noting that this technique may be a potential way for the purification of refractory and highly toxic organics in water for hydrogen production. Hazardous organics (such as phenol, aniline, nitrobenzene, tetrahydrofuran (THF), toluene, N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and cyclohexanol) in water could be completely de-graded into H2 and CO2 with high selectivity over Raney Ni, and Sn-modified Raney Ni (Sn-Raney-Ni) or Pd/C catalyst under mild conditions. The experimental results operated in tubular and autoclave reactors, indicated that the degradation degree of organics and H2 selectivity could reach 100% under the optimal reaction conditions. The Sn-Raney-Ni (Sn/Ni=0.06) and Pd/C catalysts show better catalytic performances than the Raney Ni catalyst for the degradation of organics in water into H2 and CO2 by the aqueous phase reforming process.     

Physics of transparent conductors

Transparent conductors (TCs) are materials, which are characterized by high transmission of light and simultaneously very high electrical DC conductivity. These materials play a crucial role, and made possible numerous applications in the fields of electro-optics, plasmonics, biosensing, medicine, and “green energy”. Modern applications, for example in the field of touchscreen and flexible displays, require that TCs are also mechanically strong and flexible. TC can be broadly classified into two categories: uniform and non-uniform TC. The uniform TC can be viewed as conventional metals (or electron plasmas) with plasma frequency located in the infrared frequency range (e.g. transparent conducting oxides), or ultra-thin metals with large plasma frequency (e.g. graphen). The physics of the nonuniform TC is much more complex, and could involve transmission enhancement due to refraction (including plasmonic), and exotic effects of electron transport, including percolation and fractal effects. This review ties the TC performance to the underlying physical phenomena. We begin with the theoretical basis for studying the various phenomena encountered in TC. Next, we consider the uniform TC, and discuss first the conventional conducting oxides (such as indium tin oxide), reviewing advantages and limitations of these classic uniform electron plasmas. Next, we discuss the potential of single- and multiple-layer graphene as uniform TC. In the part of the paper dealing with non-uniform metallic films, we begin with the review of random metallic networks. The transparency of these networks could be enhanced beyond the classical shading limit by the plasmonic refractive effects. The electrical conduction strongly depends on the network type, and we review first networks made of individual metallic nanowires, where conductivity depends on the inter-wire contact, and the percolation effects. Next, we review the uniform metallic film networks, which are free of the percolation effects and contact problems. In applications that require high-quality electric contact of a TC to an active substrate (such as LED or solar cells), the network performance can be optimized by employing a quasi-fractal structure of the network. We also consider the periodic metallic networks, where active plasmonic refraction leads to the phenomenon of the extraordinary optical transmission. We review the relevant literature on this topic, and demonstrate networks, which take advantage of this strategy (the bio-inspired leaf venation (LV) network, hybrid networks, etc.). Finally, we review “smart” TCs, with an added functionality, such as light interference, metamaterial effects, built-in semiconductors, and their junctions.     

Discovery Through Gossip

We study randomized gossip‐based processes in dynamic networks that are motivated by information discovery in large‐scale distributed networks such as peer‐to‐peer and social networks. A well‐studied problem in peer‐to‐peer networks is resource discovery, where the goal for nodes (hosts with IP addresses) is to discover the IP addresses of all other hosts. Also, some of the recent work on self‐stabilization algorithms for P2P/overlay networks proceed via discovery of the complete network. In social networks, nodes (people) discover new nodes through exchanging contacts with their neighbors (friends). In both cases the discovery of new nodes changes the underlying network — new edges are added to the network — and the process continues in the changed network. Rigorously analyzing such dynamic (stochastic) processes in a continuously changing topology remains a challenging problem with obvious applications. This paper studies and analyzes two natural gossip‐based discovery processes. In the push discovery or triangulation process, each node repeatedly chooses two random neighbors and connects them (i.e., “pushes” their mutual information to each other). In the pull discovery process or the two‐hop walk, each node repeatedly requests or “pulls” a random contact from a random neighbor and connects itself to this two‐hop neighbor. Both processes are lightweight in the sense that the amortized work done per node is constant per round, local, and naturally robust due to the inherent randomized nature of gossip. Our main result is an almost‐tight analysis of the time taken for these two randomized processes to converge. We show that in any undirected n‐node graph both processes take rounds to connect every node to all other nodes with high probability, whereas is a lower bound. We also study the two‐hop walk in directed graphs, and show that it takes time with high probability, and that the worst‐case bound is tight for arbitrary directed graphs, whereas Ω(n²) is a lower bound for strongly connected directed graphs. A key technical challenge that we overcome in our work is the analysis of a randomized process that itself results in a constantly changing network leading to complicated dependencies in every round. We discuss implications of our results and their analysis to discovery problems in P2P networks as well as to evolution in social networks. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 565–587, 2016     

多集群系统中资源监控代理模块的设计与实现

针对单一集群用户提交大量作业时系统响应时间长的问题,提出了一种多集群系统中资源监控的设计方案,该方案主要是对集群中各个子节点所有可用资源的状况进行监控,采集子节点的资源信息,并将收集到的集群节点负载信息传送给作业控制模块,使得作业根据分布在多集群环境中的计算资源负载情况进行作业跨集群调度。此方案可用于商业、高校等计算节点比较多的场所,提高工作效率,此方案已在高性能计算中应用,运行状况稳定。实验结果表明,当用户并提交作业和查询作业状态时,多集群系统响应时间优于单一集群系统响应时间。     

Differentiated service delivery in cooperative IP-based broadcast and mobile telecommunications networks

Email: angelo.centonza{at}brunel.ac.uk Corresponding author. Email: thomas.owens{at}brunel.ac.uk Email: john.cosmas{at}brunel.ac.uk^¶ Email: y.h.song{at}brunel.ac.uk Received on 26 November 2005. Accepted on 20 March 2007. The evolution of wireless systems has led recently to the deploymentof cooperative network infrastructures where networks basedon different technologies cooperate together to offer innovativeservices which the networks individually could not offer. Cooperativenetwork infrastructures are hybrid systems. Examples of hybridsystems are already in use in areas as diverse power systemsand locomotion systems. It is very important to apply efficientsystem management techniques to hybrid systems that produceadvantageous business case scenarios for each participatingsystem and efficient use of the available resources. In thispaper, scenarios are investigated where cooperation betweenan integrated project (IP)-based broadcast network and an IP-basedmobile telecommunications network has the potential to allowservices to be provided to mobile users which would not be economicalto offer over either an IP-based broadcast network or an IP-basedmobile telecommunications network alone. The paper presentsa novel technique for determining which network to use to deliversuch services at a given point in time. The application of thistechnique in appropriate scenarios has the potential to generateadditional income for both the IP-based broadcast network operatorand the IP-based mobile telecommunications network operatorin an infrastructure where the operators cooperate to offerinnovative services. The paper explains the construction ofutility functions for cooperative IP-based broadcast and mobiletelecommunications networks. These utility functions are thenused to provide results that enable the efficiency of the managementof the network to be assessed in terms of the utility volumegenerated by the innovative services provided.     

以史为鉴——化学科普中的人文素养教育

中国古代历史中蕴含着丰富的化学史资源,对这些资源的挖掘、解读,形成化学科普题材,既是化学教育的需要,也是加强思想政治教育背景下课程思政的现实要求。以寒食散为例,探讨中国古代化学史资源所蕴含的人文素养教育价值,认为化学科普中汲取历史资源,不仅增加了科普的趣味性,有利于向公众普及化学知识,还有助于公众树立正确的世界观和价值观。     

Scale-up and Sustainability Evaluation of Biopolymer Production from Citrus Waste Offering Carbon Capture and Utilisation Pathway

Poly(limonene carbonate) (PLC) has been highlighted as an attractive substitute to petroleum derived plastics, due to its utilisation of CO₂ and bio-based limonene as feedstocks, offering an effective carbon capture and utilisation pathway. Our study investigates the techno-economic viability and environmental sustainability of a novel process to produce PLC from citrus waste derived limonene, coupled with an anaerobic digestion process to enable energy cogeneration and waste recovery maximisation. Computational process design was integrated with a life cycle assessment to identify the sustainability improvement opportunities. PLC production was found to be economically viable, assuming sufficient citrus waste is supplied to the process, and environmentally preferable to polystyrene (PS) in various impact categories including climate change. However, it exhibited greater environmental burdens than PS across other impact categories, although the environmental performance could be improved with a waste recovery system, at the cost of a process design shift towards energy generation. Finally, our study quantified the potential contribution of PLC to mitigating the escape of atmospheric CO₂ concentration from the planetary boundary. We emphasise the importance of a holistic approach to process design and highlight the potential impacts of biopolymers, which is instrumental in solving environmental problems facing the plastic industry and building a sustainable circular economy.