UNIT 5 INDIVIDUAL PROJECT-STATISTICS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

UNIT 5 INDIVIDUAL PROJECT-STATISTICS - Essay Example To support the hypothesis it was developed an ANOVA test. The results show that there is statistical evidence to support that the average overall job satisfaction of the female employees is equal to the males, with a significance level of 5%. Besides, the third hypothesis examined was related to if the expected observations between males and females are equal to the observed ones. The test employed to find evidence was Chi-square test. According to results, there is statistical evidence to support that the expected observations of gender is different from the observed ones, with a significance level of 5%. Finally, the last hypothesis tested was about if the expected observations among employees of human resource department and Information Technology department and administration department are equal to the observed ones. In the same line of hypothesis three, the test used was Chi-square. The results show that there is statistical evidence to support that the expected observations of employees’ department is different from the observed ones, with a significance level of 5%. There were taken into account one study in the literature review. The research analyzes and empirically tests the factors which influence in the job satisfaction. According the research of Bajpai and Srivastava (2004) job satisfaction is an evaluation and represents the belief and feelings about one’s job. The favorable evaluation of satisfied employees is based on their observations and emotional experience. The feeling aspect is stated as being a function of perceived relationship between all that one wants from his job/life and that entire one perceives as offering or entailing. Another view conveyed in their research is that job satisfaction is a collection of attitudes about specific facets of the job. The study found that the amount that one is paid is not as influential to job satisfaction as perceived

The Home Video Game Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Home Video Game - Case Study Example Nintendo is a one-century old video game company in Japan. Before diversifying into the video game business, Nintendo had built up a card playing business. Nintendo Company is located in Kyoto and is managed by Yamauchi family. It started diversifying into the video game business in the 1970s. Nintendo acquired a video game technology license from Magnavox. The company introduced a home video game system in Japan in 1977. The game was based on the technology which played a Pong variation. Later, in 1978, Nintendo started selling coin-operated video games. Nintendo encountered the first hit with Donkey Kong, a company designed by Shigeru Miyamoto (Hill 20). Capabilities and competitive advantage that led to Nintendo’s success in the home game industry included the decision of the company’s manager which involved Nintendo developing its own video game machine. The manager pushed the engineers of the company to construct high-quality machines. The machines combined high graphics capabilities and their cost was low. They were sold at a half price less than the competing machines (Hill 20). The designed machines were based on consoles, controllers, and plugs in the cartridge format. The machines were made up of two chips which included an eight-bit processing unit and a graphics processing unit. Each chip performed an essential function. To lower the cost of the machines, the manager avoided using the 16-bit processor that was available at that time. The most important aspect of Nintendo Company’s strategy was the creation of cheap but high-quality games. Another important aspect was creating games with few instructions. The environment of the home video game does not allow for a single company to remain dominant over a long period. This is because success in the industry attracts many competitors.  Ã‚  

Hydrochloric acid and magnesium Essay Example for Free

Hydrochloric acid and magnesium Essay The temperature raised considerably on the other 4 due to the quickness of the reaction. This heat would quicken the reaction due to the fact that the molecules would be vibrating and therefore colliding more often (as explained before).   Sometimes the magnesium floated on the top of the acid. This was not a problem in most cases because the bubbles over lapped the magnesium so it also reacted from the top. However, due to the 0. 5 mole slow reaction, this did not happen. Because of all these inconsistencies, it is difficult to say how reliable my results are. I think that because the results are what I expected, and because I carried out the experiment with care, also the fact that I repeated the experiment many times makes it highly unlikely that the results are inaccurate enough to not be able to draw a valid conclusion from. Evaluation This was a good experiment because it clearly showed my prediction, and where it didnt I was able to spot the errors and am now able to make the experiment better. I worked as I kept a fairly high degree of accuracy, and the experiment had a high margin of error, due to the length of time some of the results could to take. My results were fairly accurate but my error in the rate of reaction of the 0. 5 mole acid could have been down to accuracy, but I seriously doubt it, as I asked around to see if other people had encountered the same problem. Everybody had. I have several theories of why the 0. 5 mole acid did not react as expected.   The temperature raised considerably on the other 4 due to the quickness of the reaction. This heat would quicken the reaction due to the fact that the molecules would be vibrating and therefore colliding more often.   Sometimes the magnesium floated on the top of the acid. This was not a problem in most cases because the bubbles over lapped the magnesium so it also reacted from the top. However, due to the 0. 5 mole slow reaction, this did not happen. To make my experiment more accurate I could have Weighing the magnesium instead of just measuring the length of it. This was an obvious problem as I think my spread of results for the end amount of hydrogen given off was too high. I would have preferred if it were only 1 or 2 ml. But it was 4. 33ml   Setting up another system for getting the magnesium into the acid. When I did the experiment I just dropped the acid in and attached the gas syringe as quickly as possible. The disadvantages with this were:   It was inaccurate   The start of the reaction would be when most gas was given off. The time of attaching the gas syringe was always different.   The gas syringe often jumped forward slightly when I put it on.   Repeated the experiment more times.   Used more acid. This would shop the temperature problem as the temperature would be less likely to change, due to the increase in energy it would take to heat the water. Because of all these inconsistencies, including the 0.5 mole acid result, it is difficult to say how reliable my results are. They are not accurate enough to study the experiment in-depth, however for a general hypothesis such as Aiming to find out whether the concentration of acid effects the speed at which gas is given off, between hydrochloric acid magnesium ribbon and because the results are what I expected, and I carried out the experiment with care, also the fact that I repeated the experiment many times, it is reasonable to presume that I can draw a simple conclusion like, the higher the concentration, the quicker the gas will be given off. If I were to do the experiment again I would change the way I inserted the magnesium into the flask. I think I would have a double chambered flask that would be able to have the wall removed. See diagram. I could combine this idea with the alternative way I could do the experiment, as described in my planning. The method would be to: Place magnesium and the acid in a flask, which is then plugged with cotton wool, to prevent any liquid splashing out, during the reaction. Next, the flask is weighed, then tipped up to let the reactants mix and a clock is started. The mass is noted at regular intervals, until the reaction is complete. I would use the same volumes for all the chemicals in the new experiment, as I see no good reason changing them. I would expect the graph for the result to be much the same, but obviously with different axis labels and values. For example In conclusion, the experiment did prove my prediction that the rate of reaction doubles with when the acid strength doubles. Daniel Hill 10S Rate of Reaction Between. doc Page 1 of 8 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Patterns of Behaviour section.

Importance of biofuels

Importance of biofuels Abstract World demand for energy has been projected to double by 2050 and be more than triple by the end of the century. Since industrial revolution in the 1850s, the human consumption of fossil fuels has been one of the growing causes of international concern and unease among some industrial nations. The reasons for which can be attributed to the rapidly depleting reserves of fossil fuels. Over the past few decades, with the successes achieved in genetic engineering technology, advances made in the field of biofuels offer the only immediate solution to fossil fuels. Presently, most of the ethanol in use is produced either from starch or sugar, but these sources have not proven to be sufficient to meet the growing global fuel requirements. However, conversion of abundant and renewable cellulosic biomass into alternative sources of energy seems to be an effective and promising solution. But for this technology to become viable there is a need to develop cheap and sustainable sources of cellulases along with eliminating the need for pretreatment processes. The review thus aims to provide a brief overview about the need and importance of biofuels particularly bioethanol with respect to the growing environmental concerns along with an urgent need to address the existing problems about cost-optimisation and large scale production of biofuels. 1.0 Introduction Biofuels are liquid fuels derived from plants. Currently, first generation biofuels are extensively being produced and used. These are generated using starch, sugar, vegetable oils and animal fats using fairly expensive conventional technology. In recent years, the fact that production of ethanol from cellulosic and lignocellulosic material is being hindered due to inadequate technology to enable efficient and economically viable methods to break down the multipolymeric raw material has gained wide popularity (Verma et al, 2010). Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient systems for the production of cellulases and other cellulose degrading enzymes. Lignocellulosic biofuels are thus likely to be seen as a part of the portfolio of solutions being offered to reduce high energy prices, including more efficient energy use along with the use of other alternative fuels (Coyle, 2007). 1.1 Importance of biofuels: Factors like the finite petroleum reserves and constantly rising demands for energy by the industrialised as well as the highly populated countries (on their Way to industrialisation) like India and china have made it absolutely necessary to look into alternate and efficient methods to replace these fuels in future (Stephanopoulos, 2008). Also, concerns like steep rise in fossil fuel prices in the recent years, increasing concerns about climate change like global warming, insecurity and unrest among governments due to their depleting natural reserves are just a few factors that define an urgent need for a sustainable path towards renewable fuel technology development (Stephanopoulos, 2008). Among the various types of alternative fuels considered (liquid fuels from coal and/or biomass with and without carbon capture and storage (CCS)), biofuels derived from lignocellulosic biomass offer the most clean and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels essentially because of their cost compet itiveness as opposed to the current expensive methods of ethanol production from sugarcane and corn (Stephanopoulos, 2008) (Shen and Gnanakaran, 2009). The global production and use of biofuels has increased tremendously in recent years, from 18.2 billion litres in 2000 to about 60.6 billion litres in 2007. It has been estimated that about 85% of this amount is bioethanol (Coyle, 2007). This increase is primarily a result of the reasons stated above along with rising concerns about global warming and greenhouse gas emissions due to excessive fossil fuels usage since biofuels are carbon-neutral and reduce green house emissions (Sainz, 2009). Also, one of the factors contributing to the viability of biofuels as an alternative transportation fuel is their ease of compatibility with our existing liquid fuel infrastructure (Sainz, 2009). An important step in the production of biofuels is the breakdown of cellulose fibres by the enzymes capable of degrading it. But the production of these enzymes is still an expensive task due to their production in large microorganism bioreactors. One method for the inexpensive production of these enzymes is the use of transgenic plants as heterologous protein production systems (Danna, 2001; Kusnadi et al., 1997; Twyman et al., 2003). Plant based enzyme production offers advantages over the traditional bacterial and fungal cultures by being commercially viable and particularly attractive since in plants, the desired protein can be made to accumulate at high levels i.e. at even greater levels than 10% of total soluble protein (Gray et al, 2008). Another major economic advantage of plant-based protein production over one that is microorganism-based is in the scale-up of protein expression. Whereas scale-up of microbial systems implies large purchase and maintenance costs for large fermentors and related equipment, scale-up of plant-based protein product would only require planting of more seeds and harvesting of a larger area (Gray et al, 2008). Cellulase expressing transgenic plants may thus offer significant capital cost savings over more traditional cellulase production via cellulolytic fungi or bacteria (Gray et al, 2008). Ethanolis an alcohol fuel currently made from the sugars found in grains, such as corn, sorghum, and wheat, as well as potato skins, rice, sugar cane, sugar beets, molasses and yard clippings. Currently, there are two methods employed for the production of bioethanol. In the first process, sugar crops or starch are grown and fermented to produce ethanol. The second process, naturally oil producing plants like Jatropha and algae are utilised to produce oils which can directly be utilised as fuel for diesel engines after heating them to reduce their viscosity. However, currently, it is majorly being produced from starch (Corn in US) and sugar (Sugarcane in Brazil) sources. According to the latest statistics (in 2008), USA and Brazil (fig. 1) were the major producers of fuel ethanol by producing 51.9% and 37.3% of global bioethanol respectively (http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#E). Brazil especially produces ethanol to a large extent from fermentation of sugarcane sugar to cater to one-fourth of its ground transportation needs (Sticklen, 2008).Similarly, to meet part of its own needs; United States produces ethanol from corn. Unfortunately, inspite of being breakthrough developments, the production of ethanol by this method is not cost-effective and barely manages to meet less than about 15 % of the countrys demands (Sticklen, 2008). Their use as energy crops is thus posing to be inappropriate since these are primary food sources, and are unstable from the viewpoints of long-term supply and cost (Sainz, 2009). The restrictions on available land and the rising price pressures would soon limit the production of grain and corn based ethanol to less than 8% in the US transport fuel mix (Tyner, 2008). Similarly, in spite of a predicted increase to 79.5 billion litres by 2022 in ethanol production from sugarcane in Brazil, this technology would eventually be limited by the same agro-economic factors affecting the grain and the corn based ethanol production (Sainz, 2009). For e.g. the use of corn for production of ethanol has led to an increase in the prices of livestock and poultry since it is the main starch component of the animal feed. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new and sustainable technologies for a significant contribution of biofuels towards the progress of renewable sources of energy and the reduction of greenhouse gases (Sainz, 2009). Thus, the benefits of a high efficiency of carbohydrate recovery compared to other technologies and the possibilities of technology improvement due to breakthrough processes in biotechnology, offer cost-competitive solutions for bioethanol production, thus making the second generation or lignocellulosic sources the most attractive option the large scale production of biofuels (Wyman et al, 2005). 3.0 Potential of cellulosic bioethanol Cellulosic ethanolis abiofuelproduced from wood, grasses, or the non-edible parts of plants. It is a type ofbiofuelproduced frombreaking down of lignocellulose, a tough structural material that comprises much of the mass of plants and provides them rigidity and structural stability (Coyle, 2007). Lignocellulose is composed mainly ofcellulose,hemicelluloseandlignin (Carroll and Sommerville, 2009). Another factor that makes the production of cellulosic bioethanol a promising step in future is that unlike corn and sugarcane, its production is not dependent on any feedcrop since cellulose is the worlds most widely available biological material that can be obtained from widely available low-value materials like wood waste, widely growing grasses and crop wastes and manures (Coyle, 2007). But production of ethanol from lignocellulose requires a greater amount of processing to make the sugar monomers available to the microorganisms that are typically used to produce ethanol by fermentation. Bioethanol is one fuel that is expected to be in great global demand in the coming years since its only main requirement is the abundant supply of biomass either directly from plants or from plant derived materials including animal manures. It is also a clean fuel as it produces fewer air-borne pollutants than petroleum, has a low toxicity and is readily biodegradable. Furthermore, the use of cellulosic biomass allows bioethanol production in countries with climates that are unsuitable for crops such as sugarcane or corn. For example, the use of rice straw for the production of ethanol is an attractive goal given that it comprises 50% of the words agronomic biomass (Sticklen, 2008). Though cellulosic ethanol is a promising fuel from an environmental point of view, its industrial production and commercialisation has not been progressing successfully. This can mainly be attributed to the high cost of production of cellulose degrading enzymes -Cellulases (Lynd et.al, 1996). Yet another very important factor is the pretreatment of lignocellulosic content in the biomass to allow cellulases and hemicellulases to penetrate and break the cellulose in the cell wall. These two steps together incur very high costs and are a hindrance in efficient production of cellulosic bioethanol. Thus plant genetic engineering is the best alternative to bioreactors for an inexpensive production of these enzymes (cellulases and hemicellulases). It can also be used to modify the lignin content/amount to reduce the need for expensive pretreatment (Sticklen, 2008). 4.0 The abundance and structure of cellulose Photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae and some bacteria produce more than 100 million tonnes of organic matter each year from the fixation of carbon dioxide. Half of this biomass is made up of the biopolymer cellulose which, as a result, is perhaps the most abundant It is the most common organic compound on Earth. Cellulose comprises about 33 percent of all plant matter, 90 percent of cotton is composed of cellulose and so is around 50 percent of wood (Britannica encyclopaedia, 2008). Higher plant tissues such as trees, cotton, flax, sugar beet residues, ramie, cereal straw, etc represent the main sources of cellulose. This carbohydrate macromolecule is the principal structural element of the cell wall of the majority of plants. Cellulose is also a major component of wood as well as cotton and other textile fibres such as linen, hemp and jute. Cellulose and its derivatives are one of the principal materials of use for industrial exploitation (paper, nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate, methyl cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) etc.) and they represent a considerable economic investment (Pà ©rez and Mackie, 2001). Cellulose and lignin are the majorcombustiblecomponents of non-foodenergy crops. Some of the examples of non-feed industrial crops are tobacco, miscanthus, industrial hemp, Populus(poplar) species and Salix(willow). Celluloseserves as one of the major resistance to external chemical, mechanical, or biological perturbations in plants. This resistance ofcelluloseto depolymerization is offered by its occurrence as highly crystalline polymer fibers (Shen and Gnanakaran, 2009).it occur in plants in two crystalline forms, I-aand I-ß(Nishiyama et al, 2002) (Nishiyama et al, 2003). The crystal structures of both these forms suggest that hydrogen (H) bonding plays a key role in determining the properties ofcellulose (Shen and Gnanakaran, 2009).Thechemical formula of cellulose is(C6H10O5) n. It is apolysaccharideconsisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand ß (1?4) linkedD-glucoseunit (Crawford, 1981) (Updegraff, 1969). This tough crystalline structure of cellulose molecules is proving to be a critical roadblock in the production of cellulosic bioethanol as it is difficult to breakdown the microfibrils of crystalline cellulose to glucose (Shen and Gnanakaran, 2009). 4.1 Primary structure of cellulose The main form of cellulose found in higher plants is I-ß. The primary structure of cellulose as shown in figure 2, is a linear homopolymer of glucose residues having theDconfiguration and connected byß-(1-4) glycosidic linkages (Sun et al, 2009). Essentially, the occurrence of intrachain and interchain hydrogen bonds (fig. 3) in cellulose structures has been known to provide thermostability to its crystal complex (Nishiyama, 2002). Intrachain hydrogen bonds are known to raise the strength and stiffness of each polymer while the interchain bonds along with weak Wander-Waals forces hold the two sheets together to provide a 2-D structure. This arrangement makes the intrachain bonding stronger than that holding the two sheets together (Nishiyama, 2002). The chain length and the degree of polymerisation of glucose units determine many properties of the cellulose molecule like its rigidity and insolubility compared to starch (Shigeru et al, 2006). Cellulose from different sources also varies in chain lengths, for e.g. cellulose from wood pulp has lengths between 300 and 1700 units while that from fibre plants and bacterial sources have chain lengths varying from 800 to 10,000 units (Klemm et al, 2005). Cellulose, a glucose polymer is the most abundant component in the cell wall. These cellulose molecules consist of long chains of sugar molecules. The process of breaking down these long chains to free the sugar is called hydrolysis. This is then followed by fermentation to produce bioethanol. Various enzymes are involved in the complex process of breaking down glycosidic linkages in cellulose (Verma et al, 2010). These are together known as glycoside hydrolases and include endo- acting cellulases and exo-acting cellulases or cellobiohydrolase along with ß-glucosidase (Ziegelhoffer, 2001) (Ziegler, 2000). In the cellulose hydrolysis process, endoglucanase first randomly cleaves different regions of crystalline cellulose producing chain ends. Exoglucanase then attaches to the chain ends and cleaves off the cellobiose units. The exoglucanase also acts on regions of amorphous cellulose with exposed chain ends without the need for prior endoglucanase activity. Finally ß-glucosidase breaks the bonds between the two glucose sugars of cellobiose to produce monomers of glucose (Warren, 1996). Presently, two methods are widely used for cellulose degradation on an industrial scale: Chemical hydrolysis: This is a traditional method in which, cellulose is broken down by the action of an acid, dilute and concentrated both acids can be used by varying the temperature and the pH accordingly. The product produced from this hydrolysis is then neutralised and fermented to produce ethanol. These methods are not very attractive due to the generation of toxic fermentation inhibitors. Enzymatic hydrolysis: Due to the production of harmful by-products by chemical hydrolysis, the enzymatic method to breakdown cellulose into glucose monomers is largely preferred. This allows breaking down lignocellulosic material at relatively milder conditions (50?C and pH5), which leads to effective cellulose breakdown. 6.0 Steps involved in cellulosic ethanol (bioethanol) production process The first step in the production of bioethanol, involves harvesting lignocellulose from the feedstock crops, compaction and finally its transportation to a factory for ethanol production where it is stored in a ready form for conversion. The second step is the removal of lignin present in the feedstock biomass by using heat or chemical pre-treatment methods. This step facilitates the breakdown of cell wall into intermediates and removes lignin so as to allow cellulose to be exposed to cellulases, which then break down cellulose into sugar residues. Currently, cellulases are being produced as a combination of bacterial and fungal enzymes for such commercial purposes (Sticklen, 2008). This is then followed by steps like detoxification, neutralisation and separation into solid and liquid components (Sticklen, 2008). The hydrolysis of these components then takes place by the enzymes like cellulases and hemicellulases that are produced from micro-organisms in the bioreactors (Sticklen, 2008).and finally; ethanol is produced by sugar fermentation. The figure below (fig. 4) depicts the main steps in the production of bioethanol:   7.0 Major cell wall components and the key enzymes involved in their breakdown 6.1 Cellulose and cellulases: About 180 billion tonnes of cellulose is produced per year by plants globally (Festucci et al, 2007). In the primary and secondary cell walls, about 15-30% and 40% dry mass respectively is made up of cellulose (Sticklen, 2008). Till date, it is the only polysaccharide being used for commercial production of cellulosic ethanol because of the commercial availability of its deconstructing enzymes (Sticklen, 2008). As described above, three types of cellulases are involved in the breakdown of cellulose into sugars namely, endoglucanases, exoglucanasees and ßglucosidase (Ziegler, 2000). 6.2 Hemicellulose and Xylanases: xyloglucans and hemicelluloses surround the cellulose microfibrils. So in order to break cellulose units, specific enzymes are first required to first remove the hemicellulose polysaccharide. Hemicelluloses are diverse and amorphous and its main constituent is ß-1, 4-xylan. Thus, xylanases re the most bundant type of hemicellulases required to cleave the endo-and exo-activity (Warren, 1996). These are mainly obtained from the fungi Trichoderma reesei, along with a large number of bacteria, yeast and other fungi which have been reported to produce1.4 ß-D xylanases. 6.3 Lignin and Laccasses: The major constituent of plants secondary cell wall is lignin. It accounts for nearly 10-25% of total plant dry matter (Sticklen, 2008). Unlike cellulose and hemicelluloses, the lignin polymer is not particularly linear and instead comprises of a complex of phenylpropanoid units which are linked in a 3-D network to cellulose and xylose with ester, phenyl and covalent bonds (Carpita, 2002).   White rot fungi (esp. Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Trametes versicolour) are thought degrade lignin more efficiently and rapidly than any other studied microorganisms (DSouza, 1999). P. Chrysosporium produces laccases like ligninases or lignin peroxidase, which initiate the process of degradation of lignin and manganese dependent peroxidises (Cullen, 1992). 8.0 Production of cellulases and hemicellulases in tobacco chloroplasts Protein engineering methodologies provide the best answer to concerns regarding production of improved cellulases with reduced allosteric hindrance, improved tolerance to high temperatures and specific pH optima along with higher specific activity (Sainz, 2009). The table below (table 1) lists different type of cellulases and hemicellulases that have been expressed in plant chloroplasts: Chloroplasts are green coloured plastids that have their own genome and are found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms like algae. The targeted expression of foreign genes in plant organelles can be used to introduce desired characteristics in a contained and economically sustainable manner (fig. 5). It also allows us to combine various other advantages like easy and efficient scalability along with being entirely free of animal pathogens. Unlike most other methods of plant genetic engineering, the major advantage with chloroplast transformation is their characteristic of transgene containment i.e. transgenes in these plastids are not spread through pollen (Verma and Daniell, 2007). This implies that chloroplast genetic transformation is fairly a safe one and does not pose the risk of producing herbicide resistant weeds (Ho and Cummins, 2005). Chloroplast transformation involves homologous recombination. Thisnot only minimises the insertion of unnecessary DNA that accompaniestransformation of the nuclear genome, but also allows precisetargeting of inserted genes, thereby also avoiding theuncontrollable, unpredictable rearrangements and deletions oftransgene DNA as well as host genome DNA at the site of insertionthat characterises nuclear transformation (Nixon, 2001). Another advantage of chloroplast transformation is that foreign genes can be over-expressed due to the high gene copy number, up to 100,000 compared with single-copy nuclear genes (Maliga, 2003). While nuclear transformants typically produce foreign protein up to 1%TSP in transformed leaf tissue, with some exceptional transformants producing protein at 5-10%TSP, chloroplast transformants often accumulate foreign protein at 5-10%TSP in transformed leaves, with exceptional transformants reaching as high as >40%TSP (Maliga, 2003). Research is needed to determine the stability of the biological activity of extracted plant-produced hydrolysis enzymes in TSP when stored under freeze conditions for different periods of time before their use in hydrolysis (Sticklen, 2008). Two other important and related areas for further research are increasing the levels of production and the biological activity of the heterologous enzymes (Sticklen, 2008).Many cell wall deconstructing enzymes have been isolated and characterised and more need to be investigated for finding more enzymes that can resist higher conversion temperatures and a range of pHs during pretreatment. Serious efforts to produce cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale are already underway. Other than the Canadian Iorgen plant, no commercial cellulosic ethanol plant is yet in operation or under construction (Sticklen, 2008). However, research in this area is underway and funding is becoming available around the world for this purpose, from both governmental and commercial sources. For example, British Petroleum have donated half a billion dollars to US institutions to develop new sources of energy primarily biofuel crops (Sticklen, 2008). 10.0 Conclusion The fact that corn ethanol produces more green house gas emissions than gasoline and that cellulosic ethanol from non-food crops produces less green house gas emissions than electricity or hydrogen, is one of the factors that highly favour production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass (Verma, 2010). However, biofuel production from lignocellulosic materials is a challenging problem because of the multifaceted nature of raw materials and lack of technology to efficiently and economically release fermentable sugars from the complex multi-polymeric raw materials (Verma, 2010). After decades of research aimed at reducing the costs of microbial cellulases, their production is still expensive (Sticklen and Oraby, 2005). One way of decreasing such costs is to produce these enzymes within crop biomass. Although some important advances have been made to lay the foundations for plant genetic engineering for biofuel production, this science is still in its infancy (Sticklen, 2008). A general challenge is to develop efficient systems for the genetic transformation of plant systems for the production of cellulose degrading enzymes. Research is particularly needed to focus on the targeting of these enzymes to multiple subcellular locations in order to increase levels of enzyme production and produce enzymes with higher biological activities (Sticklen, 2008). A huge potential exists to produce larger amounts of these enzymes in chloroplasts, and exciting progress has been made in terms of the crops for which the chloroplast can now be genetically engineered. More effo rts are however needed towards the development of systems to genetically engineer chloroplasts of biomass crops such as cereals and perennial grasses (Blaschke, 2006). Some of the key aims of the project would be: To characterise cell wall degrading enzymes Overexpression of cellulose cDNA in pET30 vector systems Induction and characterisation of proteins in different conditions The use of tobacco plant as means of producing cellulases through chloroplast genetic engineering to simultaneously addresses the most important question of shifting the agricultural land from feed crops to biofuel crops (like corn and sugarcane at present) along with the cost-effective large scale production of cellulose degrading enzymes.

Dave of The Dave Matthews Band :: Music Musical Matthews Essays

Dave of The Dave Matthews Band Death and destruction sells in this day in age. As Santana so correctly put it, â€Å"It seems that I thrive on the dark side of things/ I always feel alive when the death bell rings/ now you come and you bring out the tears in me† As a culture, Americans have a tendency to enjoy something that gets their blood boiling, something that makes them want to just let it all go and scream as apposed to something that makes them feel all warm and bubbly inside. There are however, those bands out there that do manage to keep their fan base interested with love songs that are reminiscent of the sixties â€Å"flower children.† One of the greatest is the Dave Matthews Band. In order to understand Dave and his band, one has to understand Dave’s history. Dave was born in South Africa. Through out his childhood, he moved in and out of the states. Eventually, after his farther died in New York in the 80’s, Dave and his family decided to move back to South Africa. This is when, due to the hatred that engulfs this particular region of our â€Å"peaceful† world, his sister was murdered. One can safely assume that Dave took it upon himself to spread a loving message through his music. Love of ones neighbor is his common theme. Two of the more powerful songs that show this over all image of love are â€Å"The Best of What’s Around† and â€Å"Jimmi Thing.† â€Å"Hey my friend, it seems your eyes are troubled, care to share, your time with me?† Do you care to let me share some of your burdens? â€Å"The Best of What’s Around† is a song that puts the listener into the shoes of one of Dave’s friends. In the song, Dave is found comforting that friend through hard times. There are many forms of love in this world, one being, the love of thy neighbor. In â€Å"The Best of What’s Around† Dave is abiding by the golden rule, â€Å"Love thy neighbor as thyself.† Treat your friends with the same respect that you expect to receive. Its human nature to share loads. When someone sees that their friend is in a bad state, there is a natural urge for that person to try to help their friend out.

Free College Essays - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight :: Sir Gawain Green Knight Essays

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The poet begins his work by reminding us that the history of Britain is both ancient and glorious; Aeneas, whose deeds in the Trojan War are legendary, whose exploits in war are recorded in Virgil's Aeneid, and who is legendary for having founded the city of Rome after the Trojan War, was the ancestor of a man named Felix Brutus who founded Britain ("Britain" comes from "Brutus"). The most noble of the kings that followed Brutus was Arthur; the poet says that he intends to tell one of the wondrous tales of Arthur. One Christmas at Camelot, the king, his queen Guinevere, and the court gather for fifteen days of celebration. The best and noblest of people and activities are there: brave and famous men who compete in military games, beautiful and gracious ladies who play kissing games with the men. There is the most wonderful entertainment-dancing, feasting, singing. On New Year's Day, there is a tremendous feast at which all gather together. Arthur, young and impulsive, has a feast-day tradition, though, which has to be observed before the meal. He would not eat on such an occasion until he observed something marvelous: the telling of an amazing story, the fighting of a glorious battle, or the like. Arthur presides over the feast at the high table with Guinevere and Gawain and other famous knights as music plays and the food is brought in-so many delicacies and elaborate dishes that the poet says it would be impossible to describe them all. In the midst of the preparations for the feast, and as Arthur waits for a marvel to take place so that he can eat, a huge and terrible man bursts into the hall-a giant of a man, his chest and limbs are massive even while his proportions show him to be fit and attractive. The most shocking thing about him is that he was completely green. The poet spends most of the next three stanzas describing the Green Knight in detail; first, we learn of his clothing, trimmed in fur and embroidery, all green and gold. Then we learn that the horse he rides, the saddle, and the stirrups are all green. The man's long hair matches that of the horse, and he has a great, thick beard, also green.

Aztecs VS Mongols Essay

The Mongols and the Aztecs evolved on completely opposite sides of the world, so they had a substantial amount of differences. The contrasted culturally and socially. For example, religion was one of the numerous differences between the two. Also, the foundation of their societies was different as well; one being based on agriculture and the other being nomadic. However, they were not different in every aspect. The Mongols and Aztecs were similar politically because both had substantial and powerful militaries. Culturally, the Aztecs and Mongols were different, particularly with their religions. The Aztec Empire worshipped their Sun God; they believed that the sun was a gift from the Gods and that as it goes down every night, they’re required to make sacrifices in order to make it rise up again the next morning. Their king had to be a descendant of the Sun God in order to rule and he lived in a large religious temple. On the other hand, the Mongols were tolerant of most religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Shamanism, Islam). There were few places of worship because of the fact that they were nomadic, but they did praise their Allah. The empire first began as Pagans but eventually Islam became the favored religion of the empire because the Mongols went into the middle east.They did not sacrifice people, but they did animals. This religious difference exists because the two empires are on reverse regions of the globe, the Mongols in central Asia/Middle East and the Aztecs in present day Mexico; Therefore we know that the different areas of the world followed different customs and religions. The Aztecs and Mongols also contrasted socially, specifially because of the foundation of their civilizations. The Aztecs based their civilization on agriculture. They lived in what is Mexico today which had fertile soil and was surrounded by water, thus making it easier to maintain crops and create a system to manage the water. Then there were the Mongols who didn’t really stay in one spot, but were pastoral nomads who traveled all the way from  Eastern Europe to Central Asia with their livestock as a way of obtaining food. Not only did the Aztecs live in such a fertile area of the world, but their main city, Tenochtitlan, was surrounded by Lake Texcoco which provided them with easy access to trade routes. The Mongols could not be agricultural-based peoples like the Aztecs because of the extremely dry desert-like land they inhabited which was not suitable for crops. Therefore they had to resort to the nomadic lifestyle in order to survive. The Mongols and Aztecs were fairly similar politically. Both civilizations had prodigious militaries and conquered everyone around them. The Mongol Empire was a military empire, with Genghis Khan as their leader. They used advanced weapons from China (such as the bow and arrow and flaming catapults), and were excellent horse warriors. The boys were trained to be soldiers at the age of 14 and were forced to join the army. The Aztecs also had a society strongly based around their powerful military. In their empire, every boy who was physically capable would be trained to fight even with little notice. The aggressive warlike way of life in these societies made them very sturdy empires; both were able to conquer areas around them that no one else was able to, because of their intellegence of warfare and use of weapons. Overall, the Aztecs and Mongols were both large and advanced empires. Although they developed at different times and in different places, they had similar military lifestyles. But there were also plenty of things that differentiated the two empires; the first being their religious beliefs and the second being the social foundations of their society (agricultural or nomadic).