BACKGROUND The study presented here has used the commercial flow sheeting program Aspen Plus™ to evaluate techno-economic aspects of large-scale hemp-based processes for producing transportation fuels. The co-production of biogas, district heat and power from chopped and steam-pretreated hemp, and the co-production of ethanol, biogas, heat and power from steam-pretreated hemp were analysed. The...

District heating companies are responsible for delivering the heat produced in central heat plants to the consumers through a pipeline system. At the same time they are expected to keep the total heat production cost as low as possible. Therefore, there is a growing need to optimise heat production through better prediction of customers needs. The paper illustrates the way neural networks, name...

Cogeneration power plants simultaneously generate power and usable heat in a single, integrated system, which achieves a degree of overall efficiency that is much greater compared to electricity production alone. This makes better use of energy conversion and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Combined heat and power production is already relatively common in Europe while it is less common, for ...

The variation in climatic variables like temperature, humidity and radiations were recognized as the potential hazards in the growth and production of all domestic livestock species. Thermal environment is a major factor that can negatively affect both production and reproduction in dairy animals, especially in animals of high genetic merit. Among the stressors, heat stress has been of major co...

Mechanical and thermal changes associated with a propagated nerve impulse were determined using the garfish olfactory nerve. Production of an action potential was found to be accompanied by swelling of the nerve fibers. The swelling starts nearly at the onset of the action potential and reaches its peak at the peak of the action potential. There is a decrease in the length of the fibers while a...

Individual changes in heat production and body temperature were studied in response to cold exposure, prior to shivering. The subjects ten women (seven men) were of normal weight, had a mean age of 23 (SD 3) years and average BMI 22.2 (SD 1.6) Kg/m2. They were lying supine under thermoneutral conditions for 30 min and were subsequently exposed to air of 15 degrees C until shivering occurred. He...

In order to survive cold northern winters, honeybees crowd tightly together in a winter cluster. Present models of winter cluster thermoregulation consider the insulation by the tightly packed mantle bees as the decisive factor for survival at low temperatures, mostly ignoring the possibility of endothermic heat production. We provide here direct evidence of endothermic heat production by 'shiv...

Recent studies have shown that the metabolic cost of avian egg production involves a 16-27% increase in metabolic rate (MR) above non-reproductive basal or resting values (BMR and RMR, respectively). To determine how the metabolic cost of egg production interacted with the costs of other essential processes (such as cold acclimation and active heat production), we measured the MR of non-breedin...

Twelve adult Muzaffarnagari rams (mean weight 41.4 2.09) were used to study fasting heat production (FHP) using open circuit respiration calorimetry. After a maintenance level of feeding for 60, sheep were fasted for three days and later subjected to gaseous exchange studies for 72±96 h. Mean oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide and methane production (l/d) and urinary nitrogen excretion (g/d) va...

Workers employed in outdoor occupations such as farming are exposed to hot and humid environments that put them at risk for heat-related illness or death. This report describes one such death and summarizes heat-related fatalities among crop production workers in the United States during 1992--2006. During this 15-year period, 423 workers in agricultural and nonagricultural industries were repo...