Lessons learned from the microbial ecology resulting from different inoculation strategies for biogas production from waste products of the bioethanol/sugar industry

BACKGROUND: During strategic planning of a biogas plant, the local availability of resources for start-up and operation should be taken into consideration for a cost-efficient process. Because most bioethanol/sugar industries in Brazil are located in remote areas, the use of fresh cattle manure from local farms could be a solution for the inoculation of the biogas process. This study investigated the diversity and dynamics of bacterial and archaeal communities and the performance of biogas reactors inoculated with manure and a mixed inoculum from different biogas reactors as for a controlled start-up until steady state. RESULTS: Laboratory-scale biogas reactors were fed semi-continuously with sugarcane filter cake alone (mono-digestion) or together with bagasse (co-digestion). At the initial start-up, the reactors inoculated with the mixed inoculum displayed a less diverse taxonomic composition, but with higher presence of significant abundances compared to reactors inoculated with manure. However, in the final steady state, the communities of the differently inoculated reactors were very similarly characterized by predominance of the methanogenic genera Methanosarcina and Methanobacterium, the bacterial families Bacteroidaceae, Prevotellaceae and Porphyromonadaceae (phylum Bacteroidetes) and Synergistaceae (phylum Synergistetes). In the mono-digestion reactors, the methanogenic communities varied greater than in the co-digestion reactors independently of the inoculation strategy. CONCLUSION: The microbial communities involved in the biogas production from waste products of the Brazilian bioethanol/sugar industry were relatively similar and stable at the reactor’s steady phase independently of the inoculum source (manure or mixed inoculum). Therefore, the locally available manure can be used as inoculum for start-up of the biogas process, since it also contains the microbial resources needed. The strong fluctuation of methanogenic communities in mono-digestion reactors indicates higher risk of process instability than in co-digestion reactors. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-016-0548-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

How do sound and color features affect self-report emotional experience in response to film clips?

Previous research has shown that the use of short film clips is one of the most successful and widely-used methods of emotion elicitation. Nevertheless, there is a high degree of audiovisual variation across film clips, resulting in a trade-off in terms of controllability. To address this complexity, the present study aimed to investigate the potential effects of sound and color on film clips' emotion-elicitation levels. For this purpose, four different film clips were selected for each of the eight emotion categories: amusement, tenderness, calmness, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and neutrality. All film clips were manipulated in terms of features of sound (sound versus silent) x color (color versus BW). In total, 128 film clips were tested online on various parameters: intensity of target emotion, valence, arousal, discreteness, and non-target emotions. The results revealed that sound was a mild contributing factor in increasing the degree of target emotions and evoking less boredom and more interest. However, color effects were less pronounced in emotion-elicitation using film clips. Furthermore, the study provided preliminary evidence that for most of the film clips, there was no significant difference in emotional reactivity in response to subtitled versus dubbed film clips. In conclusion, the current study showed that film clips (with a few exceptions) can evoke moderate to high levels of emotions independent of their bottom-up features, such as sound or color

An unusual metastatic site of laryngeal carcinoma: scapular muscles

It is well known that in advanced cervical metastatic disease of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, the incidence of distant metastasis is high. A case of distant metastasis to the scapular muscles from an uncontrolled cervical metastasis of laryngeal carcinoma is presented. Other unusual metastatic sites are reviewed and the possible mechanism of the spread is discussed

Immature Platelet Count Levels as a Novel Quality Marker in Plateletpheresis

The efficiency of plateletpheresis was improved owing to new developments in automated cell separators in the past decades. Nowadays multiple units of plateletpheresis products can be taken per collection from single donor and new parameters such as immature platelet fraction (IPF), immature platelet count (IPC) can be detected practically by automated hematology analyzers. Our aim is to find out a new quality parameter for evaluation of plateletpheresis by analyzing the platelet indices of donor and also to predict platelet recovery in recipients thereby preventing unnecessary platelet transfusion. In this study 104 platelet apheresis procedures were performed on the Trima Accel cell separator. Complete blood counts of donors and recipients were analyzed by Sysmex XN-1000 automated blood cell counter by means of quality parameters such as platelet count, IPF, IPC, mean platelet volume, platelet distribution width. We analyzed these parameters in the follow up after the transfusion of plateletpheresis and evaluated them as quality markers in the assessment of plateletpheresis effectiveness. For recipients of both single and double unit apheresis platelet transfusions, the pre-apheresis donor IPC correlated significantly with 1st and 24th hour recipient IPC values (p values < 0.05 for all comparisons). A-IPC as well as % change in IPF can be used to determine the quality of plateletpheresis in conjunction with platelet number in terms of evaluation of donors and also in the follow up of recipients undergoing platelet transfusion

Biogas properties and enzymatic analysis during anaerobic fermentation of Phragmites australis straw and cow dung: influence of nickel chloride supplement

This work was funded by the National Special Water Programs (Nos. 2009ZX07210-009, 2015ZX07203-011, 2015ZX07204-007), Ecological Safety Survey and Assessment of Nansi Lake (2012–2015), Ecological Riverway Artificial Strengthen Key Technology Research and Demonstration Project of Shandong Province (2012–2014, SDHBPJ-ZB-08), the China Scholarship Council (No. 201406730018)