Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Characterizing Potential Sustainable Energy Feedstocks, Jesse George Thompson

Dissertations

Trap grease offers a promising and less expensive alternative to food grade vegetable oils for biodiesel production, but its commercial marketability could be affected by its intense and offensive odor. Identification, quantitation and eventual elimination of the odorant compounds are vital challenges that need to be addressed before commercialization can be achieved. A rapid method using HS-SPME and GC/MS was developed in this study to identify and quantify the major volatile odorant compounds present in trap grease. The main odorant compounds were identified as short chain free fatty acids (SC-FFA) from C₄ - C₁₀.

Sensory evaluations by …

Glucosamine-Induced Insulin Resistance In Primary Rat Hepatocytes And The Role Of Selenium As An Insulin Mimetic, Sandhya N. Adiyodi Veetil

Dissertations

Type 2 diabetes is mediated by insulin resistance, the inability of insulin to elicit a normal biological response in insulin responsive tissues. Several cellular models have been utilized to determine the mechanism of induction of insulin resistance but questions remain unanswered. One model, implicates the products of the Hexosamine Biosynthetic Pathway (HBP) in the induction of insulin resistance under hyperglycemia. The major end product of HBP, UDP-GlcNAc, is the substrate for O-GlcNAc transferase, an enzyme that catalyzes the O-GlcNAcylation of numerous proteins. This modification may play a role in induction of insulin resistance and thus needs to be evaluated in …