The increasing demand of the crops (soybean and corn) for biofuel production has increased the focus of the animal nutritionists to look for alternative feeds, which are economic and environmental friendly. To identify microalgae as suitable candidate as an alternative feed, growth response of Chlorella vulgaris was studied under varying concentrations of carbon dioxide (0.07, 1.4, 3.0 and 5.0%) and photon densities (39.19, 72.97, 105.41, 116.22, 135.14, 175.68 µmol/m 2 /s) by employing a photo-bioreactor. Swine wastewater was also investigated as nutritional source to economize the biomass production. Results showed that the higher biomass production was found to be at 3.0% CO2 compared to other CO2 concentrations. However, no difference in biomass production was found at 105.41 μmol/m 2 /s and above photon densities with 12 h of photoperiodicity. It was observed that C. vulgaris could easily grow in 200 times diluted swine wastewater and growth was found to be similar with that of artificial medium. Provided the conducive conditions for optimal growth, it has also the potentiality of depleting ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and orthophosphate (PO4 3-P) completely from the wastewater after 3~4 days of cultivation. Thus, growing C. vulgaris would not only solve the problem of animal feed, but also help in biological CO2 mitigation and wastewater treatment.

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This study was carried out to isolate and characterize the flavonoids present in corn silks. Maysin content in the unpollinated corn silks (Kwangpyeongok) showed its highest level at 3 days after silking, and decreased thereafter, while the content of open pollinated silks were consistently decreased after silking. This result indicates that the maysin content is considerably affected by the pollination of corn silk. Unpollinated corn silks were collected with excising, and ethanol employed to extract flavonoids at common temperature for 9 days. After extraction, chlorophyll, lipids etc. were removed with methylene chloride, then submitted to flash column cartridge (150 × 40 mm i.d.) packed with a preparative RP-C 18 bulk packing material (125 Å, 55-105 μm), and monitored at 352 nm. Four fractions, fraction-I, -II, -III, and -IV, were isolated from ethanolic extract of corn silks. Absorption spectrum of fraction I showed its maximum intensity (λmax) at 327 nm and 239 nm, fraction-II showed its maximum intensity at 339 nm and 274 nm, fraction-III showed its maximum intensity at 345 nm and 277 nm, and fraction-IV showed its maximum intensity at 352 nm, 270 nm, 257 nm, respectively. On the baisis of ESI micro-TOF analysis, fraction-I was identified as chlorogenic acid (m/z 355, 3-(3,4-dihydroxycinnamoyl)quinic acid, C16H18O9), fraction-II identified as a mixture of chlorogenic acid and luteolin 3'-methyl ether 7-glucuronosyl-(1→2)-glucuronide (m/z 653, C 28 H 28 O 18 ), fraction-III identified as a mixture of chlorogenic acid luteolin 7-O-neohesperidoside (m/z 595, C 27 H 30 O 15 ), and luteolin 3'-methyl ether 7-glucuronosyl-(1→2)-glucuronide, and fraction-IV identified as maysin (m/z 577, 2''-O-α-L-rhamnosyl-6-C-(6-deoxy-xylohexose-4-ulosyl)luteolin, C 27 H 28 O 14 ), respectively. From the ethanolic extract of corn silks, fraction-I was obtained about 35 mg/100 g F.W., fraction-II was about 48 mg/100 g F.W., fraction-III was about 46 mg/100 g F.W., and fraction-IV was about 138 mg/100 g F.W., respectively.

Understanding the characteristics of truck-involved crashes is of keen interest because such crashes are highly associated with greater potential leading to severer injury. The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting injury severity of truck-involved crashes on freeways. In addition, a binary logistic regression technique is applied to identify causal factors affecting truck crash severity under normal and adverse weather conditions. Major findings from the analyses are discussed with truck operations strategies including speed enforcement, variable speed limit, and truck lane restriction, from the safety enhancement point of view. The results of this study would be useful for developing traffic control and operations strategies to reduce truck-involved crashes and injury severity in practice.