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The present study evaluates the effect of water and acetic acid washing on the chemical composition of spruce bark in-depth. Also, washing with steam explosion condensate (SEC) was investigated which is a novel attempt. The leaching kinetics of troubling elements (TE) was studied to understand the leaching behavior of TEs and for upscaling the process. Furthermore, to study the ash transformation

A numerical formulation is provided for secondary ice production during fragmentation of freezing raindrops or drizzle. This is obtained by pooling laboratory observations from published studies and considering the physics of collisions. There are two modes of the scheme: fragmentation during spherical drop freezing (mode 1) and during collisions of supercooled raindrops with more massive ice (mod

Objective: To evaluate the effect of dosage on the metabolic response to vegetables added to a mixed lunch meal, and to relate the amounts to the tripartite plate model. Carrots were chosen as an example, and the carrots were blanched, frozen and boiled to include possible effects of processing and cooking. The effects of carrots steeped in lactic acid, as produced at fermentation, were also studi

Purpose: Sick leave and unemployment are highly prevalent among people with affective disorders. Their depression severity is disabling and inversely related to having employment. No evidence-based vocational rehabilitation exists for this target group. Knowledge is therefore needed to understand the psychosocial factors that affect depression severity in order to develop new rehabilitation interv

The present thesis explores Japanese imperative constructions from a general linguistic perspective, as well as examining the imperative as a cross-linguistic object of study. On the definitional side, a terminological apparatus for the description and analysis of imperatives and directives is presented. It includes the proposal that the range of conventional directive strategies in a language be

To meet the needs of an increasing, heterogeneous, ageing population it is imperative to understand links between home and health. In Latvia, only limited research targeting the health and home situation of very old people is available. Consequently, the aim of this study was to describe how the home environment and aspects of health have changed over nine years between 2002 and 2011 for very old

It has been proven that partially premixed combustion (PPC) has the capability of high combustion efficiency with low soot and NOx emissions, which meet the requirements of increasingly restricted emission regulations. In order to obtain more homogenous combustion and longer ignition delay in PPC, different fuel injection strategies were employed which could affect the fuel air mixing and control

The kinetics of oxygen reduction by Desulfovibrio salexigens Mast1 and the role of polyglucose in this activity were examined and compared with those of strains of D. desulfuricans and D. gigas. Oxidation rates were highest at air saturation (up to 40 nmol of O2min−1 mg of protein−1) and declined with decreasing oxygen concentrations. Studies with cell extracts (CE) indicated that NADH oxidase was

Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) can achieve zero exhaust emission and zero pollution. In order to make FCEV reach a farther travel distance, greater demands are put on its pressure reducing system. In this paper, a two-step high pressure reducing system for FCEV is proposed. The system is made up of two parts, a new high multi-stage pressure reducing valve (HMSPRV) and a multi-stage muf

Ocean thermal energy refers to the thermal potential energy produced by the temperature difference between the warm surface seawater and the cold deep seawater. In this paper, a siphon flash evaporation desalination system using ocean thermal energy is proposed. Because it can utilize the ocean thermal energy directly for desalination, siphon flash evaporation desalination system has relatively hi

From experience, it has been well known that the performance of IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks significantly drops in dense settings, largely driven by poor capacity of the medium access control (MAC) layer. The current 802.11 MAC mechanism utilizes a contention window (CW) for random access, and the CW size is dictated to take discrete values from a bounded finite set. In this paper, wi

Frataxin is a highly conserved protein found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. It is involved in several central functions in cells, which include iron delivery to biochemical processes, such as heme synthesis, assembly of iron-sulfur clusters (ISC), storage of surplus iron in conditions of iron overload, and repair of ISC in aconitase. Frataxin from different organisms has been shown to undergo

The effects of fuel properties on the performance and emissions of an engine running in partially premixed combustion mode were investigated using nine test fuels developed in the gasoline boiling point range. The fuels covered a broad range of ignition quality and fuel chemistry.The fuels were characterized by performing a load sweep between 1 and 12 bar gross IMEP at 1000 and 1300 rpm. A heavy d

Organo-metal halide perovskites are some of the most promising materials for the new generation of low-cost photovoltaic and light-emitting devices. Their solution processability is a beneficial trait, although it leads to a spatial inhomogeneity of perovskite films with a variation of the trap state density at the nanoscale. Comprehending their properties using traditional spectroscopy therefore

In this work, we investigate production of Drell-Yan (DY) pairs in proton-nucleus collisions in kinematic regions where the corresponding coherence length does not exceed the nuclear radius, RA, and the quantum coherence effects should be treated with special care. The results for the nucleus-to-nucleon production ratio available in the literature so far are usually based on the assumption of a ve

A reliable phylogenetic reconstruction of the evolutionary history of contemporary species depends on a robust identification of the universal common ancestor (UCA) at the root of the Tree of Life (ToL). That root polarizes the tree so that the evolutionary succession of ancestors to descendants is discernable. In effect, the root determines the branching order and the direction of character evolu

Background: Effective digestive enzymes are crucial for successful islet isolation. Supplemental proteases are essential because they synergize with collagenase for effective pancreatic digestion. The activity of these enzymes is critically dependent on the presence of Ca2+ ions at a concentration of 5–10 mM. The present study aimed to determine the Ca2+ concentration during human islet isolation

SUMMARY: Antibody repertoires reveal insights into the biology of the adaptive immune system and empower diagnostics and therapeutics. There are currently multiple tools available for the annotation of antibody sequences. All downstream analyses such as choosing lead drug candidates depend on the correct annotation of these sequences; however, a thorough comparison of the performance of these tool

The compelling images and promises attached to autonomous drive vehicles can easily create an impression that one can speak of a radical distinction between a self-driving future and a manual-driving present. Yet today’s drivers can already refer to their everyday driving as being experienced as though on ‘auto-pilot’, in which they are able to drive their cars while lost in things such as daydrea