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Agriculture accounts for 10 to 12% of the World's total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Manure management alone is responsible for 13% of GHG emissions from the agricultural sector. During the last decade, Québec's egg production systems have shifted from deep-pit housing systems to manure belt housing systems. The objective of this study was to measure and compare carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from three different cage layer housing systems: a deep liquid manure pit and a manure belt with natural or forced air drying. Deep liquid manure pit housing systems consist of "A" frame layer cages located over a closed pit containing the hens' droppings to which water is added to facilitate removal by pumping. Manure belt techniques imply that manure drops on a belt beneath each row of battery cages where it is either dried naturally or by forced air until it is removed. The experiment was replicated with 360 hens reared into twelve independent bench-scale rooms during eight weeks (19-27 weeks of age). The natural and forced air manure belt systems reduced CO2 (28.2 and 28.7 kg yr-1 hen-1, respectively), CH4 (25.3 and 27.7 g yr-1 hen-1, respectively) and N2O (2.60 and 2.48 g yr-1 hen-1, respectively) emissions by about 21, 16 and 9% in comparison with the deep-pit technique (36.0 kg CO2 yr-1 hen-1, 31.6 g CH4 yr-1 hen-1 2.78 g N2O yr-1 hen-1). The shift to manure belt systems needs to be encouraged since this housing system significantly decreases the production of GHG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of amine-borane as reducing agent for the synthesis of iron nanoparticles has been investigated. Large (2-4 nm) Fe nanoparticles were obtained from [Fe{N(SiMe3)2}2]. Inclusion of boron in the nanoparticles is clearly evidenced by extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy and Mössbauer spectrometry. Furthermore, the reactivity of amine-borane and amino-borane complexes in the presence of pure Fe nanoparticles has been investigated. Dihydrogen evolution was observed in both cases, which suggests the potential of Fe nanoparticles to promote the release of dihydrogen from amine-borane and amino-borane moieties., (Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

A series of bimetallic titanium-ruthenium complexes of general formula [(η(5)-C(5)H(5))(μ-η(5):κ(1)-C(5)H(4)(CR(2))(n)PR'R'')TiCl(2)](η(6)-p-cymene)RuCl(2) (n = 0, 1, 2 or 4; R = H or Me; R' = H, Ph, or Cy; R'' = Ph or Cy) have been synthesized, including two novel compounds as well as two cationic derivatives of formula [(η(5)-C(5)H(5))(μ-η(5):κ(1)-C(5)H(4)(CH(2))(n)PPh(2))TiCl(2)] [(η(6)-p-cymene)RuCl](BF(4)) (n = 0 or 2). The solid state structure of two of these compounds was also established by X-ray crystallography. The complexes showed a cytotoxic effect on human ovarian cancer cells and were markedly more active than their Ti or Ru monometallic analogues titanocene dichloride and RAPTA-C, respectively. Studies of cathepsin B inhibition, an enzyme involved in cancer progression, showed that enzyme inhibition by the bimetallic complexes is influenced by the length of the alkyl chain in between the metal centers. Complementary ESI-MS studies provided evidence for binding of a Ru(II) fragment to proteins.