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Purification of mRNA with oligo(dT)-functionalized magnetic particles involves a series of magnetic separations for buffer exchange and washing. Magnetic particles interact and agglomerate with each other when a magnetic field is applied, which can result in a decreased total surface area and thus a decreased yield of mRNA. In addition, agglomeration may also be caused by mRNA loading on the magnetic particles. Therefore, it is of interest how the individual steps of magnetic separation and subsequent redispersion in the buffers used affect the particle size distribution. The lysis/binding buffer is the most important buffer for the separation of mRNA from the multicomponent suspension of cell lysate. Therefore, monodisperse magnetic particles loaded with mRNA were dispersed in the lysis/binding buffer and in the reference system deionized water, and the particle size distributions were measured. A concentration-dependent agglomeration tendency was observed in deionized water. In contrast, no significant agglomeration was detected in the lysis/binding buffer. With regard to magnetic particle recycling, the influence of different storage and drying processes on particle size distribution was investigated. Agglomeration occurred in all process alternatives. For de-agglomeration, ultrasonic treatment was examined. It represents a suitable method for reproducible restoration of the original particle size distribution.
A study of industry 4.0 technologies in the John Deere and Company and their impact on company operations is presented in this paper. Deere and Company’s implementation of Industry 4.0 to its factories and its factors was the focus of the research. The literature review with the systematic approach as well as a comprehensive review of current John Deere and Company’s developments is used in the current study. Also, it relied on freely available information on the company website. Public and investor relations have also been used as credible sources of information. An analysis found that adopting industry 4.0 technologies to agriculture manufacturing results in higher quality products, increased productivity, safety, and wider acceptance among stakeholders. This study assumes full implementation of these technologies in all agriculture manufacturing companies, and it also emphasizes up-to-date technologies. Studying this topic can be useful for engineers in mechanical and agricultural fields, managers in business, and marketers.
E-commerce has been keeping fast increasing worldwide since beginning of the 21st century. Rapid growth of e-commerce & parcel shipping is a booming business. However, how to handle with many hard-to-solve sustainability issues of transport in urban areas, is becoming a serious challenge for urban logistic sector and numerous stakeholders. The sustainability issues contain the problems of air pollution, congestion, and sub-contractors. This paper reported those issues in the context of growth of e-commerce and analyzed their efforts on the sustainable urban logistics development.
The implementation of single-use technologies offers several major advantages, e.g. prevention of cross-contamination, especially when spore-forming microorganisms are present. This study investigated the application of a single-use bioreactor in batch fermentation of filamentous fungus Penicillium sp. (IBWF 040-09) from the Institute of Biotechnology and Drug Research (IBWF), which is capable of intracellular production of a protease inhibitor against parasitic proteases as a secondary metabolite. Several modifications to the SU bioreactor were suggested in this study to allow the fermentation in which the fungus forms pellets. Simultaneously, fermentations in conventional glass bioreactor were also conducted as reference. Although there are significant differences in the construction material and gassing system, the similarity of the two types of bioreactors in terms of fungal metabolic activity and the reproducibility of fermentations could be demonstrated using statistic methods. Under the selected cultivation conditions, growth rate, yield coefficient, substrate uptake rate, and formation of intracellular protease-inhibiting substance in the single-use bioreactor were similar to those in the glass bioreactor.
Carbon footprinting of universities worldwide: Part I — objective comparison by standardized metrics
(2021)
Background: Universities, as innovation drivers in science and technology worldwide, should be leading the Great Transformation towards a carbon–neutral society and many have indeed picked up the challenge. However, only a small number of universities worldwide are collecting and publishing their carbon footprints, and some of them have defined zero emission targets. Unfortunately, there is limited consistency between the reported carbon footprints (CFs) because of different analysis methods, different impact measures, and different target definitions by the respective universities.
Results: Comprehensive CF data of 20 universities from around the globe were collected and analysed. Essential factors contributing to the university CF were identified. For the first time, CF data from universities were not only compared. The CF data were also evaluated, partly corrected, and augmented by missing contributions, to improve the consistency and comparability. The CF performance of each university in the respective year is thus homogenized, and measured by means of two metrics: CO2e emissions per capita and per m2 of constructed area. Both metrics vary by one order of magnitude across the different universities in this study. However, we identified ten universities reaching a per capita carbon footprint of lower than or close to 1.0 Mt (metric tons) CO2e/person and year (normalized by the number of people associated with the university), independent from the university’s size. In addition to the aforementioned two metrics, we suggested a new metric expressing the economic efficiency in terms of the CF per $ expenditures and year. We next aggregated the results for all three impact measures, arriving at an overall carbon performance for the respective universities, which we found to be independent of geographical latitude. Instead the per capita measure correlates with the national per capita CFs, and it reaches on average 23% of the national impacts per capita. The three top performing universities are located in Switzerland, Chile, and Germany.
Conclusion: The usual reporting of CO2 emissions is categorized into Scopes 1–3 following the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard which makes comparison across universities challenging. In this study, we attempted to standardize the CF metrics, allowing us to objectively compare the CF at several universities. From this study, we observed that, almost 30 years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (1992), the results are still limited. Only one zero emission university was identified, and hence, the transformation should speed up globally.
Purpose: Grounded in the theoretical concepts of utilitarianism and deontology, this paper aims to evaluate the issue of child labour from an ethics perspective. By linking utilitarianism with normative stakeholder theory, relevant stakeholder groups are being identified in order to examine their influence on and role in the occurrence of child labour allowing for a practical reference. The findings may serve companies in particular as a basis for decision-making in the development of their value chains.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The author uses a literature review in order to analyze the findings of existing literature on the topic of child labour in an ethics context, thereby drawing on literature, indexed in Web of Science and Google Scholar by employing forward and backward citation analysis.
Findings: The investigation of child labour in terms of ethics yields conflicting results. From a deontological perspective, child labour can never be ethical and should always be rejected as it is not wanted to become a general law. In contrast, according to a utilitarian sentiment, child labour is ethically justifiable as long as the beneficiaries of the labour are greater in number than the children working or suffering.
Originality/Value: The examination of child labour from the perspective of deontology and utilitarianism in conjunction with normative stakeholder theory constitutes a novelty in the ethics literature. The integration of theoretical findings into a practical business context provides additional value for managers and global supply chain managers.
Objective: The objective of the article highlight the significance of culture in the entrepreneurial landscape and provides entrepreneurs and (project) managers with a guidance tool to overcome previously unconsidered stumbling blocks while operating in the intercultural setting.
Research Design & Methods: The following article was prepared based on a critical study review devoted to existing approaches to intercultural impact in business life and used the archival technique from 1990-2020. The study review reflects on the identification of existing literature gaps in the implementation of a subcultural business environment. It addresses these by designing an appropriate model to bypass the apparent pitfalls of intercultural business communication and co-existence, if possible.
Findings: Culture impacts diverse sets of society and businesses, including entrepreneurship. This article underpins which pitfalls are advisable to consider when encountering the intercultural and entrepreneurship-driven workplace.
Implications & Recommendations: Based on the study review, startups, as well as big corporate companies’ projects of a creational nature, are advised to reconsider their perception and handling of culture applying The Building of Cultural and Entrepreneurial Force.
Contribution & Value Added: The added value of this article is to be found in the solid analysis of cultural essentialism, anti-essentialism, and implications to beware of in the managerial and entrepreneurial context related to The Building of Intercultural and Entrepreneurial Force that intends to ease to co-work of intercultural teams.
Cryotropic gelation is one of the most common approaches to design novel hydrogels with multifaceted technological and biological functionalities. In the present paper, we studied the ability of highly galactosyl-substituted galactomannans, i.e. fenugreek and alfalfa gum, to form physically crosslinked hydrogels via cryogenic processing. Cycling of the galactomannan solutions (0.25 to 4% wt) from 25 to −20 to 25 °C induced the physical crosslinking of the galactomannan chains leading to the formation of different cryogel structures, i.e. filamentous aggregates (c* < c < 1%), cellular-like gel networks (1 ≤ c < 4%) or a homogeneously swollen gel (c ≥ 4%), depending on the total biopolymer content. Alfalfa gum-based cryogels exhibited higher elasticity and stiffness, better uniformity of the structure and a lower macropore size than their fenugreek counterparts. The physical blending of alfalfa or fenugreek gum with locust bean gum (2% total biopolymer) led to the reinforcement of the mechanical properties of the cryogels without significantly altering their microstructural aspects.
Thailand’s power system has been facing an energy transition due to the increasing amount of Renewable Energy (RE) integration, prosumers with self-consumption, and digitalization-based business models in a Local Energy Market (LEM). This paper introduces a decentralized business model and a possible trading platform for electricity trading in Thailand’s Micro-Grid to deal with the power system transformation. This approach is Hybrid P2P, a market structure in which sellers and buyers negotiate on energy exchanging by themselves called Fully P2P trading or through the algorithm on the market platform called Community-based trading. A combination of Auction Mechanism (AM), Bill Sharing (BS), and Traditional Mechanism (TM) is the decentralized price mechanism proposed for the Community-based trading. The approach is validated through a test case in which, during the daytime, the energy import and export of the community are significantly reduced when 75 consumers and 25 PV rooftop prosumers participate in this decentralized trading model. Furthermore, a comparison analysis confirms that the decentralized business model outperforms a centralized approach on community and individual levels.
In relation to the fast development of e-commerce and rapid increasing of parcels, urban logistic sector is facing the challenge of sustainability. Especially, last-mile delivery as the last step of goods transport, it connects to customers’ satisfaction, cost efficiency of logistic companies, and more and more public expectations to sustainability of urban logistics. To handle with the complexity of urban logistics conditions, governments and logistics companies should develop a co-operating strategy for sustainability of urban last-mile delivery. This paper is based on data collection from the long-term empirical research and a survey to the e-commerce users in Germany and China to develop a sustainable concept for the urban last-mile delivery. The key to the development of concept is to create a balance among the requirements of customers, the competition abilities of logistics companies and the public interest.