Educated consumers don't believe artificial meat is the solution to the problems with the meat industry

The production of in vitro meat by cell culture has been suggested by some scientists as one solution to address the major challenges facing our society. Firstly, consumers would like the meat industry to reduce potential discomfort of animals on modern farms, or even to avoid killing animals to eat them. Secondly, citizens would like meat producers to reduce potential environmental deterioration by livestock and finally, there is a need to reduce world hunger by increasing protein resources while the global population is predicted to grow rapidly. According to its promoters, artificial meat has a potential to make eating animals unnecessary, to reduce carbon footprint of meat production and to satisfy all the nutritional needs and desires of consumers and citizens. To check these assumptions, a total of 817 educated people（mainly scientists and students） were interviewed worldwide by internet in addition to 865 French educated people. We also interviewed 208 persons（mainly scientists） after an oral presentation regarding artificial meat. Results of the three surveys were similar, but differed between males and females. More than half of the respondents believed that ＂artificial meat＂ was feasible and realistic. However, there was no majority to think that artificial meat will be healthy and tasty, except respondents who were in favour of artificial meat. A large majority of the respondents believed that the meat industry is facing important problems related to the protection of the environment, animal welfare or inefficient meat production to feed humanity. However, respondents did not believe that artificial meat will be the solution to solve the mentioned problems with the meat industry, especially respondents who were against artificial meat. The vast majority of consumers wished to continue to eat meat even they would accept to consume less meat in a context of increasing food needs. Only a minority of respondents（from 5 to 11%） would recommend or accept to eat in vitro meat instead of meat produced from farm animals. Despite these limitations, 38 to 47% of the respondents would continue to support research on artificial meat, but a majority of them believed that artificial meat will not be accepted by consumers in the future, except for respondents who were in favour of artificial meat. We speculated that the apparent contradictory answers to this survey expressed the fact that people trust scientists whoare supposed to continuously discover new technologies potentially useful in a long term future for the human beings, but people also expressed concern for their health and were not convinced that artificial meat will be tasty, safe and healthy enough to be accepted by consumers.

AGILITY INDEXES AND APPLICATION OF PRODUCTION PLANNING

The agility of production planning is defined as two characters： synchronization and flexibility. Measurement indexes for evaluating agility are then divided into two dimensions separately. Synchronization includes two horizontal indexes： order lead time ratio and demand fulfilling rate; Two vertical indexes： instruction-reaction cycle time and resource matching rate. Flexibility includes five indexes： scope flexibility, delivery flexibility, variety flexibility, capacity buffer, inventory buffer and modification flexibility. Quantitative formulas for each measurement index are constructed. One application is discussed to illustrate the feasibility and reasonability of the indexes.

Optimized production of a novel bioflocculant M-C11 by Klebsiella sp. and its application in sludge dewatering

The optimized production of a novel bioflocculant M-C11 produced by Klebsiella sp. and its application in sludge dewatering were investigated. The optimal medium carbon source,nitrogen source, metal ion, initial pH and culture temperature for the bioflocculant production were glucose, NaNO3, MgSO4, and pH 7.0 and 25°C, respectively. A compositional analysis indicated that the purified M-C11 consisted of 91.2% sugar, 4.6% protein and 3.9% nucleic acids（m/m）. A Fourier transform infrared spectrum confirmed the presence of carboxyl, hydroxyl,methoxyl and amino groups. The microbial flocculant exhibited excellent pH and thermal stability in a kaolin suspension over a pH range of 4.0 to 8.0 and a temperature range of 20 to 60°C.The optimum bioflocculating activity was observed as 92.37% for 2.56 mL M-C11 and 0.37 g/L CaCl2 dosages using response surface methodology. The sludge resistance in filtration（SRF）decreased from 11.6 × 1012 to 4.7 × 1012m/kg, which indicated that the sludge dewaterability was remarkably enhanced by the bioflocculant conditioning. The sludge dewatering performance conditioned by M-C11 was more efficient than that of inorganic flocculating reagents,such as aluminum sulfate and polymeric aluminum chloride. The bioflocculant has advantages over traditional sludge conditioners due to its lower cost, benign biodegradability and negligible secondary pollution. In addition, the bioflocculant was favorably adapted to the specific sludge pH and salinity.

Optimization of microwave pretreatment of lignocellulosic waste for enhancing methane production： Hyacinth as an example

The effect of microwave pretreatment on the anaerobic degradation of hyacinth was investigated using response surface methodology （RSM）. The components oflignin and the other constituents of hyacinth were altered by microwave pretreatment. Comparison of the near-infrared spectra of hyacinth pretreated by microwave irradiation and water-heating pretreatment revealed that no new compounds were generated during hyacinth pretreatment by microwave irradiation. Atomic force microscopy observations indicated that the physical structures of hyacinth were disrupted by microwave pretreatment. The yield of methane per gram of the microwave-irradiated substrate increased by 38.3% as compared to that of the substrate pretreated via water-heating. A maximum methane yield of 221 mL·g-sub^-1 was obtained under the optimum pretreatment conditions （substrate concentration （pSC） = 20.1 g·L^-1 and pretreatment time （PT） = 14.6 min） using RSM analysis. A maximum methane production rate of 0.76 mL·h^-1· g-sub^-1 was obtained by applying PSC = 9.5 g·L^-1 and PT= 11 min. Interactive item coefficient analysis showed that methane production was dependent on the PSC and PT, separately, whereas the interactive effect of the PSC and PT on methane production was not significant. The same trend was also observed for the methane production rate.