Reducing the carbon footprint of energy production is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today. Lignocellulosic biomass residues from fruit production industries show promise as a ...viable energy source. This paper presents a study of the Italian context concerning the utilization of orchard lignocellulosic residues for energy production as electricity or bioethanol. The potential of various orchard residues was assessed through chemical and physical analyses, and an equivalent electrical energy of about 6441.62 GWh or an amount of 0.48 Mt/y of bioethanol was obtained based on the average annual dry residue mass availability of about 3.04 Mt/y. These data represent 9.30% of the national electrical energy production from renewable sources, as well as 6.21% of the Italian demand for gasoline in 2022. Electricity generation from these residues has shown its potential as a reliable and sustainable baseload power source, as well as a source of renewable transportation fuel. The studied process could be a valuable reference to expand these concepts on a global scale to achieve a greener and more sustainable energy future.
Lignocellulosic biomass is a nonedible matrix that can be efficiently exploited as feedstock in an integrated biorefinery after a proper pretreatment. An organosolv pretreatment using an acidified ...γ-valerolactone (GVL)/water solution was proposed to improve the cellulose enrichment and enzymatic saccharification of cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) stems. At the optimal pretreatment condition (140 °C, 0.6 GVL/water, and 2.24% H2SO4), xylan was efficiently removed from the cardoon, and up to 50% of its content was recovered in the aqueous fraction, while 86% of the cellulose was retained in the solid fraction. The resulting cardoon pulp showed a cellulose content of 91.5% and an enzymatic digestibility of 100%. An overall glucose production of 37.17 g/100 g raw material (90% theoretical maximum) was obtained using high solid loading (20% w/w) and a high enzyme dosage (60 FPU/g cellulose). At a low enzyme dosage, glucose concentrations of 169 g/L and 210 g/L were achieved using 10 FPU/g cellulose and 20 FPU/g cellulose, respectively. Therefore, an organosolv pretreatment can be an effective process for producing cellulose-enriched pulp with enhanced enzymatic digestibility from cardoon stems, providing a promising option for green lignocellulosic biorefineries that aim to produce high concentrations of glucose with low cellulase addition.
The growing demand for truffles has led to a global pursuit for their occurrence in the wild, and studies concerning their cultivation. Although European countries such as Italy, France and Spain ...have been known for truffle production, truffle hunting is new to Finland. The present study reports for the first time, the findings of
Tuber maculatum
in Finland on the basis of morphological and molecular analysis. The chemical characteristics of soil samples collected from the truffle sites have also been discussed. The species of the
Tuber
samples were identified primarily using morphological analysis. Molecular analysis was carried out for the confirmation of the identity of the species. Two phylogenetic trees were constructed based on internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences produced in this study and including representative sequences of whitish truffles available in GenBank. The truffles were identified as
T. maculatum
and
T. anniae
. This study could be considered as a basis for encouraging research on findings and identification of truffles in Finland.
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo - Brazil could say "Ole" to Bolivia and import liquified natural gas (LNG) from other countries. Petrobras has in its hands a project to buy the product, which could be ...transported from any part of the world, without either gas pipelines or political crisis. To do so, it would merely have to build one or two regasification plants, each one costing about US$400 million. "It is an alternative source of supply," Ildo Sauer, Petrobras director for gas and energy, revealed to the "Gazeta Mercantil."
RIO E SO PAULO - O Brasil pode dar um ole na Bolivia e importar gas natural de outros paises. A Petrobras tem nas maos um projeto para comprar o produto resfriado (o Gas Natural Liquefeito, GNL), o ...que permitira transporta-lo a partir de qualquer lugar do mundo, sem gasoduto nem crise politica. Para tanto, tera de construir uma ou duas plantas de regaseificacao, cada uma com custo medio de US$ 400 milhoes.
Nigeria, Trindad y Tobago, Egito, Siberia, Russia sao os maiores produtores mundiais. Estados Unidos e Europa sao os principais compradores. "Estamos analisando precos, atentos ao mercado. Importar ...da Nigeria para o Nordeste seria mais barato que construir o Gasene", conta, referindo-se ao Gasoduto Sudeste Nordeste (Gasene), orcado em cerca de US$ 1 bilhao. Navios transportadores tambem estao na mira da estatal. A construcao da unidade de regasificacao demanda cerca de tres anos, mas existe tecnologia americana, com modulos prontos, capaz de acelerar o processo. Ildo Sauer apresentou apresentou estudos e contatos iniciais de todo o projeto na reuniao da diretoria de quarta-feira passada. O Brasil importa atualmente metade do consumo: sao trazidos 24 milhoes de metros cubicos por dia, exclusivamente da Bolivia. A capacidade do gasoduto e de 30 milhoes de metros cubicos. A previsao e que o Pais dobre o consumo ate 2010.
Investimento da Petrobras seria de no minimo US$ 400 milhoes e criaria alternativa a dutos. O Brasil pode dar um ole na Bolivia e importar gas natural de outros paises. A Petrobras tem nas maos um ...projeto para comprar o produto resfriado (o Gas Natural Liquefeito, GNL), o que permitira transporta-lo a partir de qualquer lugar do mundo, sem gasoduto nem crise politica. Para tanto, tera de construir uma ou duas plantas de regaseificacao, cada uma com custo medio de US$ 400 milhoes. "E uma fonte alternativa de suprimento", revelou a este jornal o diretor de gas e energia da Petrobras, Ildo Sauer.
Even in cases of noticeable breasts asymmetry, such as in our case, it is advisable to use implants with the same volume and projection, in order to maintain a similar breast footprint and allow a ...similar aging behavior over time. This can be achieved by reducing the size of the larger breast, thereby addressing the volume discrepancy before the placement of the implants. However, in our case, the skeletal deformities resulted in a significant disparity in the projection of the right and left sides of the chest wall, hindering the use of breast implants with identical projection. Therefore, due to this asymmetrical chest wall deformity, the left prosthesis was placed behind the central and lateral glandular parenchyma, avoiding hyper-projection in the medial part of the breast.Level of Evidence V This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
The antinociceptive effect of BoNT-A have been well documented in animal studies; however, results of few but well-designed randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials about BoNT-A efficacy in ...masticatory myofascial pain (MFP) are inconsistent. Therefore, the present randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial evaluated the efficacy of BoNT-A in patients with refractory MFP. Twenty-eight patients with pain reduction of less than 30% despite conservative treatment and with an average pain intensity of > 50 mm on the visual analogue scale (VAS) participated. Patients were randomly assigned to receive a total of 80 U of BoNT-A or saline solution (SS) injected into the masseter and anterior temporalis muscles. Pain intensity (VAS), quantitative sensory testing (QST), conditioned pain modulation (CPM), and psychosocial status were examined. Follow-up was performed at 1 and 6 months. For repeated-measure comparisons between evaluation times, Friedman test with Bonferroni correction was used for pain and somatosensory variables and the Wilcoxon test for the psychosocial variables. The Mann-Whitney test was used for all comparisons between groups. The BoNT-A group had a significant decrease in pain intensity at follow-ups compared with the SS group (p < 0.001). QST assessment revealed higher pressure pain threshold values in the masseter muscle for BoNT-A group compared to SS (p < 0.03) at all follow-ups. No differences were found for mechanical pain threshold and wind-up ratio values (p > 0.05) in the entire study. The BoNT-A group presented the most efficient CPM effect (p < 0.03) only at the 1 month follow-up in the masseter muscle. There was a significant time effect for BoNT-A in all psychosocial variables (p < 0.05) and a drug effect in the Central Sensitization Inventory (p < 0.01), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (p < 0.004), and Healthy Survey 36 (p < 0.05) at 6 months follow-up. The study demonstrates that a single injection-session of BoNT-A has positive effects on the hall pain spectrum of patients with refractory masticatory myofascial pain.
