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High throughput sequencing of gut microbiota helps to understand the nutrition and health of the host. In this sense, it is an important tool for improving wildlife conservation and management. Little is known about the microbial communities occupying the gastrointestinal tract and the differences of microbiota among primate species. We conducted a microbiome study of the gastrointestinal tract in golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellanae), green monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus), and ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), using the 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. The gastrointestinal tract of all three primates were characterized by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria, although the relative abundance of these taxa differed across non-human primate species and gastrointestinal segments. In addition, the stomach of the golden monkey demonstrated a strong signal of microbial metabolic activity, especially in metabolizing carbohydrate. Prevotella multisaccharivorax and Selenomonas bovis were the main contributors to the function, and the enzymes involved in these metabolic activities were mainly derived from the glycoside hydrolase (GH) family. Microbial composition and function vary widely across non-human primate species and gastrointestinal segments. Therefore, while faecal samples are necessary for studying many mammals, particularly in the wild, data from the gastrointestinal tract have the potential to greatly improve our knowledge of host-gut microbe interactions. This information can contribute to the development of conservation interventions and animal care protocols in the wild and captivity to more fully describe a species’ nutritional needs and advance health and survival.

A shrouded wind turbine system has a number of potential advantages over the conventional wind turbine. A novel power-augmentation-guide-vane (PAGV) that surrounds a Sistan wind turbine was designed to improve the wind rotor performance by increasing the on-coming wind speed and guiding it to an optimum flow angle before it interacts with the rotor blades. The integration of the PAGV into the 3-in-1 wind, solar and rain water harvester on high-rise buildings has been illustrated. A particular concern related to public safety is minimized when the wind turbine is contained inside the PAGV and noise pollution can be reduced due to the enclosure. Besides, the design of the PAGV that blends into the building architecture can be aesthetic as well. Moreover, a mesh can be mounted around the PAGV to prevent the bird-strike problem. From the wind tunnel testing measurements where the wind turbine is under free-running condition (only rotor inertia and bearing friction were applied), the wind rotor rotational speed (with the PAGV) was increased by 75.16%. Meanwhile, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation shows that the rotor torque was increased by 2.88 times with the introduction of the PAGV. Through a semi-empirical method, the power output increment of the rotor with the PAGV was 5.8 times at the wind speed of 3 m/s. Also, the flow vector visualization (CFD) shows that a larger area of upstream flow was induced through the rotor with the PAGV.

An innovative 3-in-1 wind–solar hybrid renewable energy and rain water harvester is designed for urban high rise application. A novel power-augmentation-guide-vane (PAGV) that surrounds the Sistan rotor vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) is introduced to guide and increase the speed of the high altitude free-stream wind for optimum wind energy extraction. The system was also designed to provide optimum surface area and orientation for solar power generation. On the top surface of the PAGV, rain water can be collected, thereby reducing the electrical power required to pump water to the upper levels of the high rise building. To minimize the visual impact, the outer design of the PAGV can be blended into the building architecture. The system is also designed to eliminate the bird-strike problem and the concern on safety, and reduce the vibration. Wind tunnel testing on the scaled down prototype shows that the PAGV improved the starting behavior and increased the rotational speed of the Sistan rotor VAWT by 73.2% at the wind speed of 3 m/s. According to the present study, with the 30 m diameter and 12 m high PAGV integrated system, the estimated annual energy generated and savings is 160 MW h.

The technical and economic feasibility study of an innovative wind–solar hybrid renewable energy generation system with rainwater collection feature for electrical energy generation is presented in this paper. The power generated would supply part of the energy requirements of the high-rise building where the system is installed. The system integrates and optimizes several green technologies; including urban wind turbine, solar cell module and rain water collector. The design was conceptualized based on the experiences acquired during the development and testing of a suitable wind turbine for Malaysian applications. It is compact and can be built on top of high-rise buildings in order to provide on-site renewable power to the building. It overcomes the inferior aspect on the low wind speed by channeling and increasing the speed of the high altitude free-stream wind through the power-augmentation-guidevane (PAGV) before it enters the wind turbine at the center portion. The shape or appearance of the PAGV that surrounds the wind turbine can be blended into the building architecture without negative visual impact (becomes part of the building). The design improves the starting behavior of wind turbines. It is also safer to people around and reduces noise pollution. The techno-economic analysis is carried out by applying the life cycle cost (LCC) method. The LCC method takes into consideration the complete range of costs and makes cash flows time-equivalent. The evaluations show that for a system with the PAGV (30 m diameter and 14 m high) and an H-rotor vertical axis wind turbine (17 m diameter and 9 m high) mounted on the top of a 220 m high building, the estimated annual energy savings is 195.2 MW h/year.

A novel method was designed involving the titration of alternating current titration in a cell where one electrode was shielded by a capillary enclosure restricting access to it by charge carriers. With this cell, charge transfer complex titration of several thiazines all with some antimicrobial properties was effected in acetonitrile, against the electron accepting molecule iodine. The maxima of the Job plots generated by these titrations exhibited displacement of their positions for the forward and reverse titrations with respect to electron donor-acceptor complexation conductivity and apparent stoichiometry. A plot of inverse conductivity maxima differences against literature-cited dipole moments squared yielded a straight line passing through the origin. The titration plot profiles are discussed in terms of the type, number, and mobility of charge carriers produced in the complexation interaction. This novel method may be used to determine dipole moments of bioactive homologues empirically. There was correlation between thiazine drug dipole moments and minimal inhibitory concentrations of these drugs for some bacterial and yeast species. Several new avenues of investigation of possible relevance to microbiology are suggested.

Technical tradeoffs for downsizing three different ETC (electrothermal chemical) power system concepts are presented, and midterm goals are established for system size and weight reductions. The desired features of an ETC tank advanced technology demonstrator are selected to baseline the system projections. The key impeding technologies and issues that are important to make significant system size and weight reductions are identified. The likelihood of achieving the midterm goals is discussed. The compulsator approach appears to be the most compact system that could be devised in the near future, with moderate increases in rotating speed and field excitation over the state-of-the-art designs. The compulsator-based system is capable of rapid discharging for burst firings. The battery/PFN (pulse forming network) and the alternator/PFN based systems are not able to perform burst firings without multiple sets of PFN (or integrated PFN) modules used for system integration. >