The main difficulty for the cultivation and conservation of bromeliad species is the reduced number of propagules and slow growth of many of the species, resulting in a low propagation efficiency. ...Bromeliad plants are hardy and relatively easy to cultivate, with a high ornamental and ecological importance. Aiming at efficient micropropagation rates of V. hieroglyphica, a highly valued bromeliad, with very low propagation efficiency, a temporary immersion system was used and compared to semisolid and liquid static medium. Cultures obtained from in vitro germinated seeds were used as explants, maintaining their genetic diversity. Micropropagation with this simple temporary immersion system, composed of two autoclavable flasks, each with one opening for the attachment of 22 μm syringe filters, connected by a rubber stopper and an inner glass tube. In the bottom flask, an air valve is attached to the filter, which is subsequently connected to an aquarium pump and a timer and plugged to an outlet. This simple temporary immersion system showed improved micropropagation efficiency and is a method that can also be evaluated for other species.
This study looked at what happens when the nutrients in agricultural grade (AG) medium are changed and how that changes the biomass production and CO2 fixation ability of Isochrysis sp. It aims to ...address the challenges in establishing biofuel stocks due to the microalgae issue. A medium optimization system (AMOS) was first used to determine the optimum level of nitrogen, phosphorus, and micronutrients in AG medium using Factorial and Box Behnken Experimental Design, which resulted in improvements to N, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Z with 15 mM, 10 mM, 0.5 mM, 0.8 mM, 0.3 mM, and 0.15 mM, respectively. Subsequently, the improved medium was tested in a 1L culture volume, resulting in a 2.37 gL-1 biomass extracted from cultivation in the improved AG medium compared to cultivation in the traditional F/2 medium (1.63 gL-1). Cultures with higher Ca and Fe tested in an interim study yielded 9% and 7% enhanced biomass production compared to AG medium. The new optimized medium, which is known as TNBR-optimized medium (OM), was tested at the live coal-fired power plant in a 250 L air-lift bubbling column-type photobioreactor supplied with simulated and actual flue gas. The TNBR-optimized medium has demonstrated better algae growth, especially on actual flue gas, which has increased the concentration of CO2. The improved CO2 fixation rate was 0.72 gCO2.L-1 day-1, respectively, against those obtained from the previous report – 0.52 gCO2 L-1 day-1. An improved medium has been formulated to cultivate Isochrysis sp., and the current work can be further utilized for larger-scale cultivations.
•Contrary to the generic belief, cost reduction is not the top two factors for SMEs to move to cloud.•Security and privacy factors are more than willing to move to cloud than cost reduction.•The ease ...of use and convenience scores the topmost slot, fueled by the exponential growth in tablets and smart phones.•The cloud service providers should improve the reliability of the cloud, which would expedite the adoption by SMEs.•A better reliable cloud would also increase the chances of sharing and collaboration between the stakeholders in SMEs.
Cloud computing has become the buzzword in the industry today. Though, it is not an entirely new concept but in today's digital age, it has become ubiquitous due to the proliferation of Internet, broadband, mobile devices, better bandwidth and mobility requirements for end-users (be it consumers, SMEs or enterprises). In this paper, the focus is on the perceived inclination of micro and small businesses (SMEs or SMBs) toward cloud computing and the benefits reaped by them. This paper presents five factors influencing the cloud usage by this business community, whose needs and business requirements are very different from large enterprises. Firstly, ease of use and convenience is the biggest favorable factor followed by security and privacy and then comes the cost reduction. The fourth factor reliability is ignored as SMEs do not consider cloud as reliable. Lastly but not the least, SMEs do not want to use cloud for sharing and collaboration and prefer their old conventional methods for sharing and collaborating with their stakeholders.
In the local universe, a large fraction of the baryon content is believed to exist as diffuse gas in filaments. While this gas is directly observable in X-ray emission around clusters of galaxies, it ...is primarily studied through its UV absorption. Recently, X-ray observations of large-scale filaments connecting to the cosmic web around the nearby (z = 0.05584) cluster A133 were reported. One of these filaments is intersected by the sightline to quasar VV98 J010250.2−220929, allowing for a first-ever census of cold, cool, and warm gas in a filament of the cosmic web where hot gas has been seen in X-ray emission. Here, we present UV observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and optical observations with the Magellan Echellette spectrograph of VV98 J010250.2−220929. We find no evidence of cold, cool, or warm gas associated with the filament. In particular, we set a 2 upper limit on Ly absorption of log(NH i/cm−2) < 13.7, assuming a Doppler parameter of b = 20 km s−1. As this sightline is ∼1100 pkpc (0.7Rvir) from the center of A133, we suggest that all gas in the filament is hot at this location, or that any warm, cool, or cold components are small and clumpy. A broader census of this system-combining more UV sightlines, deeper X-ray observations, and a larger redshift catalog of cluster members-is needed to better understand the roles of filaments around clusters.
This paper reviews past research and new studies underway of the local interstellar environment and its changing influence on the heliosphere. The size, shape, and physical properties of the ...heliosphere outside of the heliopause are determined by the surrounding environment – now the outer region of the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC). The temperature, turbulence, and velocity vector of neutral atoms and ions in the LIC and other partially ionized interstellar clouds are measured from high-resolution spectra of interstellar absorption lines observed with the STIS instrument on the
HST
. Analysis of such spectra led to a kinematic model with many interstellar clouds defined by velocity vectors derived from radial velocity measurements. This analysis identified fifteen clouds located within about 10 pc of the Sun and their mean temperatures, turbulence, and velocity vectors. With the increasing number of sight lines now being analyzed, we find that temperatures and turbulent velocities have spatial variations within the LIC and other nearby clouds much larger than measurement uncertainties, and that these spatial variations appear to be randomly distributed and can be fit by Gaussians. The inhomogeneous length scale is less than 4,000 AU, a distance that the heliosphere will traverse in less than 600 years. The temperatures and turbulent velocities do not show significant trends with stellar distance or angle from the LIC center. If/when the Sun enters an inter-cloud medium, the physical properties of the future heliosphere will be very different from the present. For the heliosheath and the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) just outside of the heliopause, the total pressures are approximately equal to the gravitational pressure of overlying material in the Galaxy. The internal pressure in the LIC is far below that in the VLISM, but there is an uncertain ram pressure term produced by the flow of the LIC with respect to its environment.
The primary fatty acid of coconut oil is lauric acid, which is present at approximately 45–53 %. The metabolic and physiological properties of lauric acid account for many of the properties of ...coconut oil. Coconut oil is rapidly metabolized because it is easily absorbed and lauric acid is easily transported. Detailed studies have shown that the majority of ingested lauric acid is transported directly to the liver where it is directly converted to energy and other metabolites rather than being stored as fat. Such metabolites include ketone bodies, which can be used by extrahepatic tissues, such as the brain and heart, as an immediate form of energy. Studies on the effect of lauric acid on serum cholesterol are contradictory. Among saturated fatty acids, lauric acid has been shown to contribute the least to fat accumulation. Lauric acid and monolaurin have demonstrably significant antimicrobial activity against gram positive bacteria and a number of fungi and viruses. Today there are many commercial products that use lauric acid and monolaurin as antimicrobial agents. Because of the significant differences in the properties of lauric acid relative to longer chain fatty acids, they are typically differentiated as medium-chain fatty acids covering C6–C12, and long-chain fatty acids covering C14 and longer.
Abstract
The gas content of the complete compilation of Local Group dwarf galaxies (119 within 2 Mpc) is presented using H
i
survey data. Within the virial radius of the Milky Way (224 kpc here), 53 ...of 55 dwarf galaxies are devoid of gas to limits of
M
H
i
< 10
4
M
⊙
. Within the virial radius of M31 (266 kpc), 27 of 30 dwarf galaxies are devoid of gas (with limits typically <10
5
M
⊙
). Beyond the virial radii of the Milky Way and M31, the majority of the dwarf galaxies have detected H
i
gas and H
i
masses higher than the limits. When the relationship between gas content and distance is investigated using a Local Group virial radius, more of the nondetected dwarf galaxies are within this radius (85 ± 1 of the 93 nondetected dwarf galaxies) than within the virial radii of the Milky Way and M31. Using the Gaia proper-motion measurements available for 38 dwarf galaxies, the minimum gas density required to completely strip them of gas is calculated. Halo densities between 10
−5
and 5 × 10
−4
cm
−3
are typically required for instantaneous stripping at perigalacticon. When compared to halo density with radius expectations from simulations and observations, 80% of the dwarf galaxies with proper motions are consistent with being stripped by ram pressure at Milky Way pericenter. The results suggest that a diffuse gaseous galactic halo medium is important in quenching dwarf galaxies, and that a Local Group medium also potentially plays a role.
A common situation in galactic and intergalactic gas involves cold dense gas in motion relative to hot diffuse gas. Kelvin-Helmholtz instability creates a turbulent mixing layer and populates the ...intermediate-temperature phase, which often cools rapidly. The energy lost to cooling is balanced by the advection of hot high enthalpy gas into the mixing layer, resulting in growth and acceleration of the cold phase. This process may play a major role in determining the interstellar medium and circumgalactic medium phase structure, and accelerating cold gas in galactic winds and cosmic filaments. Cooling in these mixing layers occurs in a thin corrugated sheet, which we argue has an area with fractal dimension D = 5/2 and a thickness that adjusts to match the hot phase mixing time to the cooling time. These cooling sheet properties form the basis of a new model for how the cooling rate and hot gas inflow velocity depend on the size L, cooling time of the mixed phase , relative velocity , and density contrast of the system. Entrainment is expected to be enhanced in environments with short , large , and large . Using a large suite of three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we demonstrate that this fractal cooling layer model accurately captures the energetics and evolution of turbulent interfaces and can therefore be used as a foundation for understanding multiphase mixing with strong radiative cooling.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSC-EVs) have been studied in over 200 preclinical applications and dozens of human clinical trials, underscoring the need ...for scalable production processes compatible with GMP environments. Most existing 2D and 3D Bioreactor hMSC-EV production processes require a cell expansion stage utilizing undefined components, followed by a wash and medium exchange to remove expansion medium impurities prior to an EV collection phase in a defined medium. Simplifying this 3D process to include cell expansion and EV collection in one medium requires chemically defined growth conditions, a fed-batch medium design, and an efficient process to maximize cell and EV yield, and final product quality. We have developed a chemically defined, scalable fed-batch bioreactor production medium to enable the streamlined and highly efficient production of hMSC-EVs. This study evaluates hMSC-EV production and EV quality across multiple donors and tissues in microcarrier spinner flask cultures using a traditional cell expansion, wash, collect process vs the single-step production process, including scale-up to a 3L stirred tank bioreactor.
MSC-EVs were produced from hMSCs (hBM and hUC RoosterVial, 1M) in either RoosterNourish-MSC-XF/RoosterReplenish/RoosterCollect-EV or the new highly productive, chemically defined (HiDef-EV) fed-batch system and collected EVs at set times. HiDef-EV cultures led to increased EV production on days 5, 7, 10 and 12 of culture, while maintaining healthy viable cell profiles. The fed-batch process for hMSC-EV production increased the EV collection window from healthy hMSCs resulting in 2-4x increase in hMSC-EV yield over traditional EV production processes. Elimination of the medium exchange and wash steps resulted in utilization of fewer raw materials, retention rather than disposal of EVs produced during cell growth, and significant reductions in total media used and total cost per billion EVs. Additionally, EV Quality Attributes including size, tetraspanin expression, CD-73 activity, RNA, and lipid content are preserved in the HiDef-EV system. Scale up in 3L Eppendorf bioreactor showed comparable cell growth, EV yields and EV quality between traditional and HiDef-EV process. This highly productive chemically defined EV medium is a simplified, time and cost saving solution for the large-scale production of higher purity hMSC-EVs necessary for extensive clinical investigations.
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