Paddy husk support and rice bran for the production of glucoamylase by Aspergillus niger

Aspergillus niger CFTRI 1105 was cultivated on solid medium for glucoamylase production. Glucoamylase activity obtained was 83.7 U g⁻¹ DFR (Dry Fermentation Residue) in a medium containing rice bran (100 g), corn flour (2 g), stock mineral solution (10 mL) and tap water (90 mL). When corn flour (2 g) in the medium was substituted with soya flour (2 g) no significant increase in glucoamylase was observed. The effects of soya flour, urea and peptone at the same elemental nitrogen concentration as with corn flour as carbon source on glucoamylase production were investigated. Supplementation with soya flour gave the highest glucoamylase activity (121 U g⁻¹ DFR) at 72 h and addition of paddy husk to a medium containing corn and soya flour altered the enzyme production from 121 U g⁻¹ DFR to 71.3 U g⁻¹ DFR. Addition of gingili oil and coconut oil to the medium caused no improvement in glucoamylase production.     

Comparison of Industrial Scale Ethanol Production from a Palmyrah‐Based Carbon Source by Commercial Yeast and a Mixed Culture from Palmyrah Toddy

Palmyrah (Borassus flabellifer) based products were used as an alternative carbon source for industrial scale ethanol production. The fermentation medium was enriched with spent wash obtained from a distillation column. The performance of a commercially available baker's yeast in the media was compared with a ‘palmyrah toddy mixed culture’ where the organisms were obtained from the sedimentation of palmyrah toddy. In a laboratory scale study, the ethanol produced from a palmyrah fruit pulp extract, diluted with distilled water, was 16.5 gL^?1 (36 h) and 13.0 gL^?1 (48 h) with ‘palmyrah toddy mixed culture’ and baker's yeast respectively. The ‘palmyrah toddy mixed culture’ performed better than the baker's yeast with palmyrah fruit pulp extract, diluted either with distilled water or spent wash. Among the different palmyrah based carbon sources, both cultures preferred molasses diluted with spent wash and both performed best in the medium containing the spent wash supplemented with sucrose. In a 5,000 L industrial scale fermentation of 20° Brix molasses supplemented with 10 gL^?1 ammonium sulphate, 72 gL^?1 and 65 gL^?1 ethanol was produced by the ‘palmyrah toddy mixed culture’ (72 h) and the baker's yeast (90 h) respectively. As the performance of the ‘palmyrah toddy mixed culture’ was better than that of the baker's yeast, the former was selected for the industrial scale studies of molasses fermentation media diluted with spent wash. In these studies the temperature reached 42°C by 36 h and resultant cell death was observed. However ethanol production was higher and more rapid in the molasses diluted with spent wash, rather than in the molasses diluted with tap water and supplemented with (NH₄)₂SO₄. Cell recycle operation obviated the interruption in fermentation caused by temperature induced cell death and increased rates and efficiency of ethanol production were observed.     

Palmyrah Distillery Spent Wash for Ethanol Production by a Thermotolerant Saccharomyces cerevisiae S1 at 40°C

Palmyrah distillery spent wash was used as an alternative to the predefined PYN medium (peptone, yeast extract, magnesium sulphate, potassium hydrogen phosphate and ammonium sulphate). In this study, the focus was on the utilization of spent wash from Sri Lankan palmyrah based distilleries to reduce the biological oxygen demand (BOD). To utilise the spent wash, it was supplemented with glucose and different nitrogen sources. Replacing PYN medium with spent wash and the increase in the glucose concentration led to a decrease in ethanol production. Hydrolysis of spent wash with a commercial protease (Neutrase) and supplementation with 200 gL^?1 glucose produced 73.4 gL^?1 ethanol. Among the different nitrogen sources supplemented 4.6 gL^?1 (NH₄)₂SO₄ increased ethanol production to 92.5 gL^?1 indicating that the spent wash could be economically used to produce ethanol, while decreasing the BOD from 25,000 to 4,000 mgL^?1.     

Effect of pH on Preparation and Performance of Physically Immobilized Amyloglucosidase on DEAE-Cellulose

This study was to optimize the pH for immobilization as well as for repeated saccharification of dextrinized starch by physically immobilized amyloglucosidase on DEAE-cellulose. Immobilization activity yield for physical immobilization of amyloglucosidase on DEAE-cellulose was high at neutral pH values. Activity of immobilized amyloglucosidase increased as pH decreased and was high at pH 4.0 under our experimental conditions. However, for the repeated batchwise saccharification of dextrinized starch, pH 4.5 was optimal as both degree of saccharification (85%) and enzyme retentivity(72%) of immobilized enzyme were high at the end of third cycle.     

Block-Shanno multi-user constant modulus algorithm for use inmulti-user CDMA environment

In a multi-user direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system, retrieval of transmitted signals with a conventional receiver is difficult when there is chip asynchronism, multipath propagation and the associated near-far problem. Results presented show that despite these problems an adaptive linear receiver based on a mixed cross correlation and constant modulus algorithm (CC-CMA) has the potential to retrieve all users simultaneously. Compared with the conventional CC-CMA algorithm, the proposed algorithm achieves faster convergence. Simulations support the improved convergence properties of the algorithm     

Synergistic Action of α-Amylase and Glucoamylase on Raw Corn

Optimum ratio of glucoamylase to α-amylase for synergistic hydrolysis of starch in corn flour was 1.8 AGU/1.0 KNU. The rate of hydrolysis of starch in dry milled corn was faster than that of waxy maize starch and wet processed corn. Hydrolysis of the starch in dry milled corn was the most efficient compared with that of wet milled, corn steeped in water or NaOH.     

Large Scale Preparation of Crystalline Glucose from Raw Starch in Corn Flour

Starch in considerable amount is lost during its purification from raw materials. Further, purification costs energy and time. To avoid these, starch in corn flour was hydrolyzed by the synergistic action of α-amylase and glucoamylase while avoiding high temperature gelatinization and liquefaction processes. When 1600 g (16%, W/W suspension) and 4000 g (40%, WW suspension) corn flour was hydrolyzed and purified, 76.0% and 50.2% glucose yields were obtained. The residues obtained were rich in protein and minerals.     

Two-Steps Procedure for the Purification of Corn Flour Hydrolysate

When corn flour hydrolysate filtrate (CFHF) was treated with 100% (w/v) (NH₄)₂SO₄ for purification, 80.5% of the protein was removed. Among the pH values studied, at pH 1.5, 90.2% of the total protein was precipitated from CFHF and supernatant was removed by decantation. The corn flour hydrolysate was purified with Amberlite and DEAE-cellulose after precipitating the protein at pH 1.5. Charcoal was better than cation- and anion- exchange resins for the removal of proteins, amino acids and pigments from the hydrolysate.     

Administration of Human MSC-Derived Extracellular Vesicles for the Treatment of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis: Preclinical Data in MDR2 Knockout Mice

Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) is a progressive liver disease for which there is no effective medical therapy. PSC belongs to the family of immune-mediated biliary disorders and it is characterized by persistent biliary inflammation and fibrosis. Here, we explored the possibility of using extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from human, bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) to target liver inflammation and reduce fibrosis in a mouse model of PSC. Five-week-old male FVB.129P2-Abcb^4tm1Bor mice were intraperitoneally injected with either 100 µL of EVs (± 9.1 × 10⁹ particles/mL) or PBS, once a week, for three consecutive weeks. One week after the last injection, mice were sacrificed and liver and blood collected for flow cytometry analysis and transaminase quantification. In FVB.129P2-Abcb4^tm1Bor mice, EV administration resulted in reduced serum levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), bile acid (BA), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT), as well as in decreased liver fibrosis. Mechanistically, we observed that EVs reduce liver accumulation of both granulocytes and T cells and dampen VCAM-1 expression. Further analysis revealed that the therapeutic effect of EVs is accompanied by the inhibition of NFkB activation in proximity of the portal triad. Our pre-clinical experiments suggest that EVs isolated from MSCs may represent an effective therapeutic strategy to treat patients suffering from PSC.     

Discrete-Time Nonlinear Filtering Algorithms Using Gauss–Hermite Quadrature

In this paper, a new version of the quadrature Kalman filter (QKF) is developed theoretically and tested experimentally. We first derive the new QKF for nonlinear systems with additive Gaussian noise by linearizing the process and measurement functions using statistical linear regression (SLR) through a set of Gauss-Hermite quadrature points that parameterize the Gaussian density. Moreover, we discuss how the new QKF can be extended and modified to take into account specific details of a given application. We then go on to extend the use of the new QKF to discrete-time, nonlinear systems with additive, possibly non-Gaussian noise. A bank of parallel QKFs, called the Gaussian sum-quadrature Kalman filter (GS-QKF) approximates the predicted and posterior densities as a finite number of weighted sums of Gaussian densities. The weights are obtained from the residuals of the QKFs. Three different Gaussian mixture reduction techniques are presented to alleviate the growing number of the Gaussian sum terms inherent to the GS-QKFs. Simulation results exhibit a significant improvement of the GS-QKFs over other nonlinear filtering approaches, namely, the basic bootstrap (particle) filters and Gaussian-sum extended Kalman filters, to solve nonlinear non- Gaussian filtering problems.