Lale Yurttas

Cost estimates and sensitivity analyses for the ammonia fiber explosion process

Process designs were conducted for each unit of the conceptual ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX) process, and fixed capital investment and operating costs were estimated. AFEX costs about

The Dehydration Theory of Alcohol Intoxication

20-40/t of dry biomass treated. Several promising areas for reducing process costs exist. Return on investment (ROI) calculations were also done for AFEX-treated materials (as digestibility-enhanced animal feeds), in conjunction with sensitivity analyses on the overall processing costs. Estimated ROIs range from over 100%/y to negative, depending on the system variables. The most important variables are the cost of corn and corn fiber, ammonia loading, and whether or not drying is required.

MALDI-MS as a monitor of the purification and folding of synthetic eclosion hormone.

Treatment of any medical disorder should be based on the mechanistic cause of the disorder. That ideal is not met for the standard therapies for alcohol abuse and alcoholism because we do not understand the mechanisms. As a first step, we need to know how alcohol causes intoxication, inasmuch as intoxication is prerequisite to development of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Our traditional and somewhat cherished view has been that alcohol lodges within the lipid bilayer of cell membranes and “fluidizes” the inner hydrophobic domain of the phospholipids. For a variety of reasons, extensively reviewed over the last 5 years1–8this fluidization theory does not explain intoxication.

FTIR evidence for alcohol binding and dehydration in phospholipid and ganglioside micelles.

Analogues of the small protein Manduca sexta eclosion hormone (62 amino acids) were synthesized by Fmoc solid-phase methodology. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) was used to analyze the products of the syntheses and this information was used to design an efficient purification scheme. MALDI-MS was used to monitor the target products through purification and it was also used to monitor folding of the purified materials. The folded EH analogues were shown to be biologically active proteins with an in vivo bioassay using pharate adult moths, Heliothis virescens.