Balanced Output Research Articles

Sequential Model Predictive Fault-Tolerance Control for T-Type Three-Level Grid-Connected Converters With LCL Filters

Recently, fault-tolerance control (FTC) methods have been proposed to further improve the reliability of T-type three-level converters. However, the application of model predictive control in FTCs is rare, and the neutral point (NP) voltage imbalance before an open-switch fault occurs has not been solved. This paper focuses on these two problems and proposes two FTC control methods: sequential model predictive control (SMPC) and sequential model predictive tolerance control (SMPTC). Both methods are implemented by designing a sequential predictive control that first considers the NP voltage balance and then grid current tracking. Through the staggered operation of the two methods, a T-type grid-connected converter with an LCL filter can operate normally after an open-switch fault occurs. Moreover, both methods can achieve the NP voltage balance and excellent grid current outputs, eliminate the time-consuming selection of weighting factors, and reduce the number of calculation loops compared with the traditional model predictive tolerance control, thereby improving the control flexibility. The performance and comparison of the open-switch FTC with respect to the NP voltage oscillations, total harmonic distortion of the grid current, and pole voltage were demonstrated using numerous simulation and experimental results.

Patient Perceptions of Wearable and Smartphone Technologies for Remote Outcome Monitoring in Total Knee Arthroplasties.

While there is enthusiasm for wearables and smartphone technologies in evaluating clinical outcomes among clinicians, less is known about the willingness of patients who have osteoarthritis (OA) to consent for remote outcome monitoring. We developed an Institutional Review Board-approved questionnaire to assess patient perceptions of remote monitoring technologies in a high-volume orthopaedic clinical center. Fifty total knee arthroplasty (TKA) patients (56% female; mean age: 61 years, range: 23-89) and fifty nonoperative OA knee patients (54% female; mean age: 58 years, range: 25-89) routinely consulted in the clinic as part of their OA treatment and consented to participate in the study. Patient perceptions were compared using Pearson's chi-square analyses with a significance threshold of p < 0.05. We found that TKA patients were more receptive to the use of smartphone apps (84 vs. 60%, p = 0.008) and wearable sensors (80 vs. 48%, p < 0.001) and learning to use custom wearables (72 vs. 38%, p = 0.002) than nonoperative OA knee patients as part of their treatment. Likewise, the majority of TKA patients were willing to use the global positioning system in their postoperative technology (54 vs. 18%, p < 0.001), especially if they were only active during certain circumstances (62 vs. 24%, p < 0.001). TKA patients also expressed willingness to have their body movement (68%), balance (70%), sleep (76%), and cardiac output (80%) tracked using remote technologies. Overall, we found that TKA patients were highly receptive to using wearable technology in their treatments, whereas nonoperative OA knee patients were generally unreceptive. Our study challenges the concept that current wearable technology approaches will be generally effective as a tool to remotely monitor all patients across the OA severity landscape.

A Centralized Shifted Power Control Scheme for Isolated Bidirectional DC-DC Converter in Standalone DC Distribution System

When parallel converter structures are considered in modern DC distribution systems, several challenges are faced in the energy management system (EMS). For example, the circuit parameter mismatches of parallel isolated DC-DC converter modules will cause power imbalances, which is the most important concern in DC distribution system. To deal with this issue, this study presents a power management control scheme in the EMS to ensure the power balance of isolated DC-DC converters in DC distribution system. In the proposed method, the proposed shifted voltage is introduced at the output of each converter to compensate the output impedance mismatches. Especially, the shifted voltage is flexibly determined according to the output current sharing error to obtain a balanced output impedance among converters, and the balanced power sharing is achieved by means of the modified voltage reference. The simulation results with the stand-alone DC distribution system are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

An optimized reduced switch load dependent 9-level VSI for high performance vector controlled PMSM drive

This paper presents the vector control of permanent magnet synchronous motor with load dependent voltage source multi-level inverter. The proposed voltage source multi-level inverter produces 9-level three phase balanced output voltage. The inverter switches are triggered in such a way that it can produce 5-level, 7-level, 9-level output voltage. The level of generated output voltage depends on the loading condition of inverter. The proposed inverter is connected to the permanent magnet synchronous motor for improved performance of drive. The concept of vector control has been used for decoupled control of torque and flux components of current; hence the permanent magnet synchronous motor is controlled like separately excited DC motor. The proposed work had been developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and the performance had been investigated with change in load and speed. To show the effectiveness of proposed inverter FFT analysis of stator current, develop output voltage is done and THD is less than 5%. The ripple in electromagnetic torque had been reduced compared to existing methods. Hence it has been observed that overall performance of drive is enhanced.

Biorefinery upgrading of herbaceous biomass to renewable hydrocarbon fuels, Part 1: Process modeling and mass balance analysis

Process simulation has long been a well-established tool to track key operational, design, and mass and energy balance metrics for pre-commercial technologies such as advanced lignocellulosic biofuels. While tools such as this are well-documented in the public literature around 2nd-generation cellulosic ethanol technologies (which have been scaled up to commercial deployment to some degree over the past decade), such models and analysis information remain more sparse for more complex biorefinery pathways focused on producing drop-in hydrocarbon fuels and blend-stocks, particularly regarding information required to support air emissions or other environmental analysis. In this work, we summarize key details for an established “design case” modeling the conversion of herbaceous lignocellulosic biomass into a renewable diesel hydrocarbon blend-stock based on a representative lipid pathway from oleaginous yeast. The process is based on a biochemical deconstruction and upgrading approach utilizing deacetylation and dilute acid pretreatment, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, and catalytic upgrading of hydrolysate sugars to fuels. We provide key mass and energy balance outputs from the process models, with accompanying stream tables and component-level flowrates. A total of 12 model scenarios are presented spanning two feedstocks, three biorefinery scales, and two processing approaches for the lignin/residual solids waste streams. This “Part 1” manuscript presents the resulting impacts across the 12 cases on fuel yields and key output streams, focused here on direct biorefinery air emissions for selected components including CO 2 as well as sulfur (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). In the context of cleaner production, the latter focus on selected biorefinery air emission outputs establishes an initial baseline estimate and accompanying framework of the model cases, upon which an accompanying “Part 2” study will build to refine the values for these and other air pollutants across these scenarios, also considering mitigation options to comply with applicable regulatory standards. We also highlight further optimization opportunities based on potential tradeoffs identified here between air emissions versus life-cycle greenhouse gas profiles attributed to the disposition of lignin/residual solids.

Attention-based gating optimization network for multivariate time series prediction

Multivariate time series prediction is helpful for scientific decision-making and reliable assessments in numerous fields. Capturing time series nonlinear change rules with increasing dependency complexity among multivariate time series remains challenging. We propose an attention-based gating optimization network (AGON) to solve this issue. To relieve the conflict between external and target factors, the AGON divides the original time series into external factors and target factor for two parallel encoder inputs. One encoder employs feature-perceived attention to distinguish external factors’ contributions and limit the impact of low-contributing factors on high-level semantics. The other leverages long short term memory (LSTM) to establish the temporal dependencies of the target factor. In the decoder phase, fine-grained denoising attention is designed to assign an attention weight vector instead of a single scalar to filter fine-grained harmful noise in the hidden state to the uttermost. Finally, information fusion LSTM is introduced to maintain the output balance between external and target factors. An extensive experiment of three fields of energy, environment, and finance (wind speed, PM2.5, four stock datasets) is presented. AGON is able to achieve 38%, 37%, and 46% improvements in the average MAE, RMSE, and MAPE results over state-of-the-art methods across all three datasets and three-step-ahead forecasting, which implies that AGON can be very competitive and holds versatility for diverse industries’ multivariate time series even if the dataset presents strong fluctuation and a nonlinear changing tendency.

Types, applications and future developments of gravity energy storage

In recent years, the clean and environmentally-friendly renewable energy technologies have developed rapidly. How to ensure balance and flexible output of power system has become a new challenge after all kinds of volatile power sources are connected to the power system. Among different forms of stored energy, gravity energy storage, as a kind of physical energy storage with competitive environmental protection and economy, has received wide attention for its advantages such as high safety, high cost-performance, great environmental-friendliness and strong environmentally adaptation. This paper firstly introduces the basic principles of gravity energy storage, classifies and summarizes dry-gravity and wet-gravity energy storage while analyzing the technical routes of different types of gravity energy storage. Separated into groups of dry and wet gravity energy storage, these storage shows similar features and promising advantages in both environmental and economical way. Among them, LEM-GES shows a new concept of storage and will be the target for future study. Then follows an analysis of the practical applications of gravity energy storage in real scenarios such as mountains, wind farms, oceans, energy depots and abandoned mines, and finally an outlook on the future development trends of gravity energy storage technology.

Compact, efficient and power-ratio tunable orthogonally polarized Nd:YVO4 laser with coaxial diode-end-pumping configuration

Orthogonally polarized lasers (OPLs) play important roles in the application fields of precision measurement, imaging, etc. Compared with the traditional inefficient gas lasers, all-solid-state OPLs has significant advantages in output power and feasible frequency difference. In this paper, a compact, efficient and power-ratio tunable OPL with single-wavelength emission at 1064 nm is proposed using two Nd:YVO4 crystals and a coaxial diode-end-pumping configuration. The parameters of the pump source and gain media were optimized to realized high efficiency with balanced output power, as well as large tuning range of power ratio between two polarization components. Under the pump power of 13.29 W, the output power reached 2.92 W at each polarization, corresponding to the optical–optical conversion efficiency of 43.94%. The anisotropic thermal effects at two polarizations was also investigated, which was the basis of cavity design for higher output power and better beam quality. In the experiment, an overall beam quality factor (M2) of 2.23 and the RMS power instability of 1.19% was realized for the OPL.

Fabrication and Performance of Li-S/Se Solid State Cathodes with Holey Graphene As a Conductive Scaffold and Binder

Electric aircraft demonstrate potential as the future of aviation, offering zero emissions, lower noise, and potentially lower operational costs than aircraft powered by internal combustion engines. Currently, state-of-the-art lithium (Li) ion batteries used to enable today’s electrical vehicles lack the specific energy (< 250 Wh/kg) required to make electric flight (ideally requiring >400 Wh/kg) an economically beneficial endeavor. Additionally, Li ion batteries introduce serious safety concerns due to the highly flammable organic liquid electrolytes contained within the cell. Li-sulfur/selenium (Li-S/Se) cell chemistries possess high theoretical energy densities (2600 and 1160 Wh/kg, respectively) and therefore are a promising option to power electric aircraft. Rings of S doped with Se as the active cathode material result in a cell electrochemistry that can provide a balanced energy and power output during their reaction with Li. To improve safety, the S/Se cathode can be implemented with a solid-state electrolyte (SSE) to ensure the batteries would not be flammable. However, there are tremendous challenges in optimizing the interface between SSEs and the active material in the cathode composite to achieve desirable performance. In this presentation, we report our findings on the cathode fabrication and performance for solid-state Li-S/Se battery cells. We demonstrate that holey graphene (hG), a structural derivative of graphene, can serve as a scaffold host and binder to facilitate the close contact between the active material and SSEs. In addition, hG has unique properties such as through plane holes and dry compressibility that can aid in the fabrication and electrochemical performance of these high energy density solid-state batteries.

Patient Perceptions of Wearable and Smartphone Technologies for Remote Outcome Monitoring in Patients Who Have Hip Osteoarthritis or Arthroplasties.

Although there is interest in wearables and smartphone technologies for remote outcome monitoring, little is known regarding the willingness of hip osteoarthritis (OA) and/or total hip arthroplasty (THA) patients to authorize and adhere to such treatment. We developed an Institutional Review Board-approved questionnaire to evaluate patient perceptions of remote monitoring technologies in a high-volume orthopedic center. Forty-seven THA patients (60% female; mean age: 66 years) and 50 nonoperative OA hip patients (52% female; mean age: 63 years) participated. Patient perceptions were compared using Pearson's chi-squared analyses. THA patients were similarly interested in the use of smartphone apps (91% vs 94%, P= .695) in comparison to nonoperative hip OA patients. THA patients were more receptive to using wearable sensors (94% vs 44%, P < .001) relative to their nonoperative counterparts. THA patients also expressed stronger interest in learning to use custom wearables (87% vs 32%, P < .001) vs nonoperative patients. Likewise, the majority of THA patients were willing to use Global Positioning System technology (74% vs 26%, P < .001). THA patients also expressed willingness to have their body movement (89%), balance (89%), sleep (87%), and cardiac output (91%) tracked using remote technology. Overall, we found that THA patients were highly receptive to using wearable technology in their treatments. Nonoperative OA hip patients were generally unreceptive to using smart technologies, with the exception of smartphone applications. This information may be useful as utilization of these technologies for patient care continues to evolve.

Sub-6 GHz Noise-cancelling Balun-LNTA with Dual-band Q-enhanced LC Notch Filter for 5G New Radio Cellular Applications

This paper presents a blocker-tolerant broadband balun-low-noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) with a high-Q dual-band LC notch filter for 5G new radio (NR) sub-6GHz cellular applications. The proposed balun-LNTA employs a noise-cancelling 1:5 CG-CS balun-LNA topology with local feedback gm-boosting and modified current-bleeding techniques to support entire bands of sub-6 GHz 5G NR application with less than 5 dB NF performance and balanced output of balun-LNTA. The dual-band Q-boosted LC notch filter with a band-switchable differential inductor is also proposed to enhance blocker tolerance of the receiver by removing out-of-band blockers and strong transmitter leakage signals. Simulated in a 65-nm CMOS process, the designed balun-LNTA achieves a minimum noise figure of 2.38 dB, a maximum transconductance gain of 44 mS, an S11 of less than -10 dB over the frequency range of 50 MHz-6 GHz, an input-referred third-order intercept point of 1.82 dBm, and blocker rejection ratios of more than 15 dB. It consumes 5.9 mA from a nominal supply voltage of 1 V. Its active die area is 0.55 mm².

Design and Temperature Modeling Simulation of the Full Closed Hot Air Circulation Tobacco Bulk Curing Barn

For now, the open humidification method is applied in the tobacco bulk curing barn, which has some disadvantages, such as the loss of the oil content and aroma components of the tobacco leaves and the waste heat loss of the exhaust air flow. In this context, a tobacco bulk curing barn with totally closed hot air circulation is designed to perfect the curing quality of tobacco and avoid the loss of residual heat in the bulk curing barn. Meanwhile, due to the balance and symmetry of input and output of the curing barn temperature, according to the law of conservation of energy, a mathematical model of the temperature control system of the closed hot air circulation tobacco bulk curing barn is established, and the temperature transfer function of the system is obtained. On this basis, 10 algorithms are used to optimize the full closed hot air circulation tobacco bulk curing barn temperature control system PID parameters. The result of the sobol sequence seeker optimization algorithm (SSOA) is better than the other algorithms. So, the PID control strategy based on the SSOA is used to simulate and experiment the temperature control system of tobacco bulk curing barn. The simulation and experimental results show that for the tobacco bulk curing barn temperature control system, the sobol sequence seeker optimization algorithm PID control has better dynamic characteristics compared with fuzzy PID control, and the temperature control system of tobacco bulk curing barn has fast adjustment and small overshoot. Therefore, the new baking barn with proper PID parameters can improve the tobacco’s curing quality and save energy by reducing the residual heat.

Effect of Work Life Balance in Organizational Productivity in Tourism Centers in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Work-life balance is an all-encompassing concern to both employers and employees. It is an important tool while choosing a career. The study is aimed to examine the perception of employees on the influence of work life balance on the productivity of tourism centers in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria Specifically, the study aimed at examining the connection between work life balance and organizational output; determining the correlation between flexibility of work and work output in organizations; finding out the association between leave plan and amount of work produced by organizations; and examining the relationship between employee and their work performance in relation to their environment. The study adopted a descriptive survey design, with a sample size of 154. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and the hypothesis was tested using Chi-square statistical method. The study revealed that a balanced life at work has a desirable influence on the output and efficiency of the tourist centers in Port Harcourt among other ways as stimulation of employees’ performance, fostering job and life satisfaction, decreased absenteeism and motivates the employee to work. Work-life balance which encourages work flexibility helps to boost employee morale and impacts positively on the organizational productivity. It was also revealed from the study that using effective leave plan for employees in tourist centers enables employees to create a balancing effect between work activities and life activities which stimulates job satisfaction and boosts organizational productivity. It is recommended that management of tourist centers should consider employee work life balance as a veritable instrument for these centers to attain organizational productivity. The management of these centers should realize that effective leave plan and incentives should be part of the work life balance so as to encourage the employee performance and boost their morale.

210-LB: Central Regulation of Peripheral Adiposity by Nos1PVHNeurons

Within the CNS, the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH) is critical for energy homeostasis, as developmental or mechanical lesions targeting the PVH lead to massive obesity. The PVH is composed of multiple cell types expressing an assortment of neuropeptides, receptors, and enzymes, including a subset of neurons expressing nitric oxide synthase-1 (Nos1PVH) . Nos1PVH neurons project to the nucleus of the solitary tract and the intermediolateral column of the spinal cord suggesting a neural substrate through which Nos1PVH neurons might directly modulate sympathetic output and energy balance [1]. To understand the necessity of Nos1PVH neurons in basal energy balance regulation, we bilaterally injected the PVH of Nos1-iCre mice with an AAV expressing a Cre-dependent tetanus toxin (Nos1TT) . Chronic silencing of the Nos1PVH resulted in acute onset of subcutaneous and visceral obesity without changes in food intake. Surprisingly, metabolic analyses indicated no significant changes in energy expenditure, although Nos1TT treated animals preferred to utilize fat as the predominant fuel source. Pair feeding experiments also confirmed that the obesity observed in Nos1TT animals was not secondary to increased caloric intake. Adipose tissues receive input from CNS cell groups that are part of the general SNS outflow from the brain [2, 3]. Analysis of subcutaneous white adipose tissue of Nos1TT animals revealed a significant decrease in tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunoactivity within WAT suggesting decreased capacity for sympathetic activation of lipolysis. These data indicate that Nos1PVH neurons regulate energy homeostasis possibly through changes in peripheral aspects of energy balance without the influence of energy consumption. Therefore, the main goal of this project is to clarify the physiological roles of Nos1PVH neurons in the regulation of peripheral adiposity, which may lead to the development of more refined anti-obesity therapies. 1. PMID: 25392498 2. PMID: 9688991 3. PMID: 15142857 Disclosure L. D. Faulkner: n/a. K. Lewis: None. T. H. Meek: Employee; Novo Nordisk. A. J. Mercer: Employee; Novo Nordisk. O. A. Macdougald: None. D. Olson: Research Support; AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk A/S. Funding American Diabetes Association (7-21-PMF-020) ; Novo Nordisk A/S; National Institutes of Health (5R01DK104999-05)

Perturbations of Marrow Stromal Cell function during Acute Inflammation

Abstract Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) reside in a complex network of blood cells and can differentiate into chondrocytes, osteoblasts, and adipocytes. MSCs differentiation process is tightly regulated through intrinsic and extrinsic signals within the marrow microenvironment, leading to transcriptional programming of balanced lineage output. Inflammatory insults to this system can occur through the upregulation of activating cytokines. Pro-inflammatory cytokines’ impact on the hematopoietic lineage is well-defined, but similar impacts to stromal cells was largely undefined. To delineate these changes, we studied two well-characterized forms of inflammation: polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (Poly(I:C)), that activates IFNα, and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), that promotes IFNγ. Prior studies of inflammatory conditions showed bone loss; therefore, we hypothesized that there would be an increase in the MSC pool to compensate for loss of bone maturation. Using flow cytometry and lineage-tracing models of stroma, we characterize the non-hematopoietic cells’ changes following inflammatory perturbation. Our data show an increase in MSCs with decreases in osteoblasts and adipocytes following stimulation. Furthermore, we used reverse-phase protein and cytokine arrays to map the signaling mechanisms and activated pathways. We found an increase in the NFκB pathway with an accompanying increase IL-1β. Targeting of the IL-1 pathway did not phenotypically reverse the stromal perturbations but corrected the MSCs functionally. Understanding these alterations within the bone marrow microenvironment during inflammation will allow for therapeutic interventions to mediate hematopoietic diseases such as sepsis or leukemia. Supported by NIH R01 HL150078

Mechanism-based strategies to prevent salt sensitivity and salt-induced hypertension.

High-salt diets are a major cause of hypertension and cardiovascular (CV) disease. Many governments are interested in using food salt reduction programs to reduce the risk for salt-induced increases in blood pressure and CV events. It is assumed that reducing the salt concentration of processed foods will substantially reduce mean salt intake in the general population. However, contrary to expectations, reducing the sodium density of nearly all foods consumed in England by 21% had little or no effect on salt intake in the general population. This may be due to the fact that in England, as in other countries including the U.S.A., mean salt intake is already close to the lower normal physiologic limit for mean salt intake of free-living populations. Thus, mechanism-based strategies for preventing salt-induced increases in blood pressure that do not solely depend on reducing salt intake merit attention. It is now recognized that the initiation of salt-induced increases in blood pressure often involves a combination of normal increases in sodium balance, blood volume and cardiac output together with abnormal vascular resistance responses to increased salt intake. Therefore, preventing either the normal increases in sodium balance and cardiac output, or the abnormal vascular resistance responses to salt, can prevent salt-induced increases in blood pressure. Suboptimal nutrient intake is a common cause of the hemodynamic disturbances mediating salt-induced hypertension. Accordingly, efforts to identify and correct the nutrient deficiencies that promote salt sensitivity hold promise for decreasing population risk of salt-induced hypertension without requiring reductions in salt intake.

Open Circuit Fault Diagnosis in Five-Level Cascaded H-Bridge Inverter

The development of power electronic converter, especially multilevel converter, is remarkable for several decades. The complex switching and increased power of semiconductor devices are prime reasons for faults in multilevel inverters and have raised question about reliability. To improve the reliability, a cost-effective solution in terms of fault diagnosis is essential. In this context, this study proposed an open circuit fault (OCF) diagnosis technique for a switching device in a five-level cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter using fuzzy logic control. The OCF features like output voltage total harmonic distortion (THD) and normalized average output voltage are fuzzed as input variables of the fuzzy logic controller. These input variables are divided into various triangular antecedent membership function (MF). The output produced by the fuzzy controller as consequent MFs is divided into different levels to identify the faulty switch. In order to make a complete fault-tolerant structure, a reduced modulation index-based postfault control is suggested to get a balanced output voltage. The MATLAB/Simulink results and prototype results are the evidence to support the proposed fault diagnosis technique.

Optimization on hybrid energy vessel routing and energy management for floating marine debris cleanup

Marine debris pollution is increasingly threatening the marine environment and human health. The most effective way to remove macro-debris floating offshore is to send vessels to collect it. We employ advanced remote sensing technology to locate debris and vessels equipped with a hybrid energy system composed of photovoltaic, battery packs and diesel to collect debris. In order to establish an effective collection mechanism in an economical and eco-friendly manner, we propose a two-stage optimization approach of vessel routing and energy management strategy. In the first stage, a mixed integer linear programming is to minimize the vessel travel time for removing debris, which is reduced to the vessel routing problem with time window considering discrete speed. Advanced remote sensing technology and trajectory prediction software are used to locate debris at sea. An adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm with pheromone heuristic rule is tailored to solve the problem. A mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to optimize the power flow for the hybrid energy system in the second stage. The objective is to minimize the total cost, taking into account of the constraints of power load balance, battery charge and discharge state and output limit of each energy source. The proposed models and algorithm are validated by a group of numerical examples with different sizes. Compared with VRP Spreadsheet Solver and CPLEX solver, our proposed algorithm not only has obvious advantages in both time and results, but also has cubic function fitting property in time complexity within 100 data. We also compare the optimal power flow and total cost under three illumination intensity scenarios and analyze the optimal power flow for each energy. We find that in optimal power flow, diesel can charge the battery only if it supplies power to vessel load. The results show that compared with the pure diesel system, the hybrid energy system has an overwhelming advantage in terms of total cost and carbon emissions, which can be reduced by 65.78% and 82.69%, respectively. We also find no change in the cost savings of hybrid vessels when considering battery and diesel life-cycle carbon emissions.

Assembly-dependent translation of subunits 6 (Atp6) and 9 (Atp9) of ATP synthase in yeast mitochondria.

The yeast mitochondrial ATP synthase is an assembly of 28 subunits of 17 types of which 3 (subunits 6, 8, and 9) are encoded by mitochondrial genes, while the 14 others have a nuclear genetic origin. Within the membrane domain (FO) of this enzyme, the subunit 6 and a ring of 10 identical subunits 9 transport protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane coupled to ATP synthesis in the extra-membrane structure (F1) of ATP synthase. As a result of their dual genetic origin, the ATP synthase subunits are synthesized in the cytosol and inside the mitochondrion. How they are produced in the proper stoichiometry from two different cellular compartments is still poorly understood. The experiments herein reported show that the rate of translation of the subunits 9 and 6 is enhanced in strains with mutations leading to specific defects in the assembly of these proteins. These translation modifications involve assembly intermediates interacting with subunits 6 and 9 within the final enzyme and cis-regulatory sequences that control gene expression in the organelle. In addition to enabling a balanced output of the ATP synthase subunits, these assembly-dependent feedback loops are presumably important to limit the accumulation of harmful assembly intermediates that have the potential to dissipate the mitochondrial membrane electrical potential and the main source of chemical energy of the cell.

Agronomical and breeding approaches to improve the nutritional status of forage crops for better livestock productivity

AbstractBalanced feeding to livestock can effectively convert the non‐edible forage crops into human food. Balanced output and input feeding systems further will result in greater animal health and production outcomes, with greater capacity to support growing global food demands. It also positively impacts the global economy and livelihood support of those entirely depending on livestock rearing. In general, plants are made up of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, fibres, lignin, minerals and vitamins of varying concentrations. These nutritional components in forage crops are key determinants of livestock growth, reproduction, behaviour, productivity and end‐product quality (milk and meat etc.). A high proportion of lignin, undigested fibres, and anti‐nutritional factors (cyanogenic glucosides, Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and condensed tannins) adversely affect the nutritional quality of forage crops. This review highlighted the importance of nutritional and anti‐nutritional components and their inter‐relationship with diverse agro‐climatic conditions. Further, we tried to cover the recent agronomical, conventional and non‐conventional breeding methods to improve the nutritional quality of forage crops concerning livestock productivity.