OBJECTIVE To investigate the potential of Musa x paradisiaca (M. x paradisiaca) flower extracts in promoting milk production of lactating rats and its effects on growth of the suckling pups. METHODS Galactagogue activity was evaluated in terms of quantity of milk produced from the rats treated with petroleum ether, ethanol or water extracts of the flower. Lactating rats (n = 5) of Spraque Daw...

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is currently being investigated as a possible technique in the production of high quality mesophase pitch from coal tar and petroleum pitches. Mesophase pitch is used to make high technology products, such as carbon fibre. The conventional production of mesophase pitch initially involves the removal of low molecular weight species from coal tar and petroleum...

Workers in the petroleum industry are potentially exposed to a variety of petrochemicals, including benzene or benzene-containing liquids. Although a large number of studies of petroleum workers have been conducted to examine leukemia and other cancer risks, few existing studies have investigated cell-type-specific leukemias. One of the major reasons for the lack of cell-type-specific analysis ...

Deep subsurface petroleum reservoir ecosystems harbor a high diversity of microorganisms, and microbial influenced corrosion is a major problem for the petroleum industry. Here, we used high-throughput sequencing to explore the microbial communities based on genomic 16S rDNA and metabolically active 16S rRNA analyses of production water samples with different extents of corrosion from a high-te...

In 2005, few would have predicted the current revolution in global agriculture that is being driven by a sudden rise in the price of petroleum and a rapid expansion of global biofuel production from grain, sugar, and oilseed crops. The result has been a convergence of valuation between petroleum and agricultural commodities such that food prices are likely to rise substantially. While countries...

Significant advances have taken place in the last few years in the development of control designs for nonlinear infinite-dimensional systems. Such systems typically take the form of nonlinear ODEs (ordinary differential equations) with delays and nonlinear PDEs (partial differential equations). In this article we review several representative but general results on nonlinear control in the infi...

Biofuel production from renewable sources is widely considered to be one of the most sustainable alternatives to petroleum sourced fuels and a viable means for environmental and economic sustainability. Microalgae are currently being promoted as an ideal third generation biofuel feedstock because of their rapid growth rate, CO2 fixation ability and high production capacity of lipids; they also ...

The depleting petroleum reserve, increasingly severe energy crisis, and global climate change are reigniting enthusiasm for seeking sustainable technologies to replace petroleum as a source of fuel and chemicals. In this paper, the efficiency of the MVA pathway on isoprene production has been improved as follows: firstly, in order to increase MVA production, the source of the "upper pathway" wh...

Significant advances have taken place in the last few years in the development of control designs for nonlinear infinite-dimensional systems. Such systems typically take the form of nonlinear ODEs (ordinary differential equations) with delays and nonlinear PDEs (partial differential equations). In this article we review several representative but general results on nonlinear control in the infi...

Liquid transportation fuels derived from coal and natural gas could helpthe United States reduce its dependence on petroleum. The fuels could be produced domestically or imported from fossil fuel-rich countries. The goal of this paper is to determine the life-cycle GHG emissions of coal- and natural gas-based Fischer-Tropsch (FT) liquids, as well as to compare production costs. The results show...