Experimental and model enhancement of food waste hydrothermal liquefaction with combined effects of biochemical composition and reaction conditions.

Excessive food waste presents an opportunity to simultaneously alleviate waste and produce renewable resources. The present work uses hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) with elevated temperatures (280-380 °C) and times (10-60 min) to convert categorized food residues collected from a university campus dining hall into biocrude oil. Analysis of distinct feedstocks presented different biochemical compositions (protein, carbohydrate, and lipid) and yielded between 2 and 79% biocrude oil for the respective optimized HTL temperatures and times. Reaction pathways and elemental distributions (C,H,N) elucidated HTL product qualities based on feedstocks and optimized reaction conditions. Both descriptive HTL process energy recoveries and consumption ratios are included. An improved predictive model was able to accurately determine biocrude oil yield (R2adj 98.3%) of different food wastes under different reaction conditions, as well as predict previously published data (R2 94.3%). Combined experimental and analytical results were used to assess the sustainability and robustness of the HTL process.

A Wireless and Batteryless Intelligent Carbon Monoxide Sensor.

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning from natural gas water heaters is a common household accident in Taiwan. We propose a wireless and batteryless intelligent CO sensor for improving the safety of operating natural gas water heaters. A micro-hydropower generator supplies power to a CO sensor without battery (COSWOB) (2.5 W at a flow rate of 4.2 L/min), and the power consumption of the COSWOB is only ~13 mW. The COSWOB monitors the CO concentration in ambient conditions around natural gas water heaters and transmits it to an intelligent gateway. When the CO level reaches a dangerous level, the COSWOB alarm sounds loudly. Meanwhile, the intelligent gateway also sends a trigger to activate Wi-Fi alarms and sends notifications to the mobile device through the Internet. Our strategy can warn people indoors and outdoors, thereby reducing CO poisoning accidents. We also believe that our technique not only can be used for home security but also can be used in industrial applications (for example, to monitor leak occurrence in a pipeline).

Focal adhesion kinase-dependent focal adhesion recruitment of SH2 domains directs SRC into focal adhesions to regulate cell adhesion and migration.

Directed cell migration requires dynamical control of the protein complex within focal adhesions (FAs) and this control is regulated by signaling events involving tyrosine phosphorylation. We screened the SH2 domains present in tyrosine-specific kinases and phosphatases found within FAs, including SRC, SHP1 and SHP2, and examined whether these enzymes transiently target FAs via their SH2 domains. We found that the SRC_SH2 domain and the SHP2_N-SH2 domain are associated with FAs, but only the SRC_SH2 domain is able to be regulated by focal adhesion kinase (FAK). The FAK-dependent association of the SRC_SH2 domain is necessary and sufficient for SRC FA targeting. When the targeting of SRC into FAs is inhibited, there is significant suppression of SRC-mediated phosphorylation of paxillin and FAK; this results in an inhibition of FA formation and maturation and a reduction in cell migration. This study reveals an association between FAs and the SRC_SH2 domain as well as between FAs and the SHP2_N-SH2 domains. This supports the hypothesis that the FAK-regulated SRC_SH2 domain plays an important role in directing SRC into FAs and that this SRC-mediated FA signaling drives cell migration.

Characterization of aqueous phase from the hydrothermal liquefaction of Chlorella pyrenoidosa.

This study investigated the characteristics of aqueous phase from hydrothermal liquefaction of low-lipid microalgae Chlorella pyrenoidosa. The interactions of operating conditions, including reaction temperature, retention time and total solid ratio were evaluated by response surface methodology. The chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen and total phosphorus were selected as indicators of the property of AP. Results indicated that total solid ratio was found to be the dominant factor affecting the nutrient recovery efficiencies of AP. Based on energy recovery, GC-MS indicated that the AP at two optimized operating conditions (280 °C, 60 min, 35 wt.% and 300 °C, 60 min, 25 wt.%) were observed to have a higher concentration of organic acids (10.35% and 8.34%) while the sample (260 °C, 30 min, 35 wt.%) was observed to have the highest concentration of N&O-heterocyclic compounds (36.16%).

CIC signal processing embedded system a modulizable platform for multi-domain signal processing.

IT (Information Technology) industry is well developed in IC (Integrated Circuit) design, SoC (System-on-a-Chip), embedded, and etc. in Taiwan. Most of the commonly-used platforms are not configurable or modulizable at the moment. The biomedical academia in Taiwan is eager for a flexible biomedical signal sensing platform. This paper presents a novel multi-domain nano-sensor signal processing embedded system. The platform can be tailored for different demands of biomedical signal sensing.