The effects of supplemental lighting (SL) timing on vegetative growth and the photosynthetic assimilation rate of young Cymbidium hybrids were examined. Nine month old C. ‘Yang Guifei’ and ‘Wine Shower’ were treated with four different SL timings: 22:00 – 02:00 (middle of the night, MN); 17:00 – 21:00 (end of day extension, DE); 07:00 – 09:00 plus 17:00 – 19:00 (both beginning and end of the night as split day extension, SDE), and non SL (8/16 h, short day, SD) for 4 months. All SL were provided by two types of 100% red LEDs (640 and 660 nm), with 150 μmol･m-2 ･s-1 and 800 μmol･mol-1 of CO2 supplied during the night (16 h). Pseudobulb diameters were significantly higher under SL treatments compared with the SD of both cultivars, irrespective of SL timing. Net photosynthetic assimilation rates were enhanced with increased SL, due to the additional photosynthesis and reduction of dark respiration. Thus, daily net photosynthetic amounts of SL treatments effectively increased photosynthesis compared to the SD. These results indicate that SL helps promote vegetative growth by enhancing photosynthesis. Since there were no significant differences among the SL timings when CO2 was provided uniformly during the night, we concluded that growth and photosynthesis of young Cymbidium do not depend on the timing of SL application, but are related to the daily light integrals, which is the amount of photosynthetically active photons delivered over 24 hours.

Fly ash consists of various metal oxides which can remove SO2 gas by the catalyst effect. When fly ash is added in the preparation process of pitch-based activated carbon, the pitch particles aggregate and fly ash is embedded in the activated carbon. To increase SO2 gas removal performance, activated carbon was prepared by surface-treated fly ash and petroleum-based pitch. Carboxyl groups were introduced into the fly ash by malic acid treatment. The introduced carboxyl groups acted as an activation agent to create micropore around the fly ash, and created micropores were exposed to the fly ash outside of the activated carbon. The exposed fly ash increased removal amount of SO2 gas by a catalytic effect of the metal oxides. The SO2 gas removal performance improved by 34% because of the catalyst effect of the exposed fly ash and improvement in the micropore structure in the activated carbon.

Royal jelly (RJ) is a gelatinous substance that bees produce to feed bees and queen bees. It’s frequently sold as a dietary supplement to treat a variety of physical ailments and chronic diseases. While it has long been used in traditional medicine, its applications in Western medicine remain controversial. The inhibitory effect of royal jelly on osteoarthritis was investigated in primary cultured rat cartilage cells and monosodium-iodoacetate (MIA)-induced arthritis rat model 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HAD) is the main fatty acid present in RJ. Among the criteria for RJ quality analysis, 10-HAD content has been proposed as a freshness parameter. We investigated the effect of RJ on the improvement of osteoarthritis on SD rats and they were divided into five groups. In this study, we examined the effect of enzymatic royal jelly (ERJ) administration on osteoarthritis. To determine the antiinflammatory effects of RJ, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) expression were measured after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activation in RAW 264.7 cells. In in vivo animal study, osteoarthritis was induced by intra-articular injection of MIA into knee joints of rats. As a results, ERJ showed that TNF-α and IL-6 levels were decreased by ERJ treatment in a dosedependent manner. In conclusion, ERJ extract was able to inhibit articular cartilage degeneration by preventing extracellular matrix degradation and cartilage cell damage. It was considered that ERJ extract may be a potential therapeutic treatment for degenerative osteoarthritis.