Harvesting Environmental Microalgal Blooms for Remediation and Resource Recovery: A Laboratory Scale Investigation with Economic and Microbial Community Impact Assessment

A laboratory based microflotation rig termed efficient FLOtation of Algae Technology (eFLOAT) was used to optimise parameters for harvesting microalgal biomass from eutrophic water systems. This was performed for the dual objectives of remediation (nutrient removal) and resource recovery. Preliminary experiments demonstrated that chitosan was more efficient than alum for flocculation of biomass and the presence of bacteria could play a positive role and reduce flocculant application rates under the natural conditions tested. Maximum biomass removal from a hyper-eutrophic water retention pond sample was achieved with 5 mg·L-1 chitosan (90% Chlorophyll a removal). Harvesting at maximum rates showed that after 10 days, the bacterial diversity is significantly increased with reduced cyanobacteria, indicating improved ecosystem functioning. The resource potential within the biomass was characterized by 9.02 μg phosphate, 0.36 mg protein, and 103.7 μg lipid per mg of biomass. Fatty acid methyl ester composition was comparable to pure cultures of microalgae, dominated by C16 and C18 chain lengths with saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Finally, the laboratory data was translated into a full-size and modular eFLOAT system, with estimated costs as a novel eco-technology for efficient algal bloom harvesting

Dengue outlook for the World Cup in Brazil: an early warning model framework driven by real-time seasonal climate forecasts.

PublishedJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tBACKGROUND: With more than a million spectators expected to travel among 12 different cities in Brazil during the football World Cup, June 12-July 13, 2014, the risk of the mosquito-transmitted disease dengue fever is a concern. We addressed the potential for a dengue epidemic during the tournament, using a probabilistic forecast of dengue risk for the 553 microregions of Brazil, with risk level warnings for the 12 cities where matches will be played. METHODS: We obtained real-time seasonal climate forecasts from several international sources (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts [ECMWF], Met Office, Meteo-France and Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos [CPTEC]) and the observed dengue epidemiological situation in Brazil at the forecast issue date as provided by the Ministry of Health. Using this information we devised a spatiotemporal hierarchical Bayesian modelling framework that enabled dengue warnings to be made 3 months ahead. By assessing the past performance of the forecasting system using observed dengue incidence rates for June, 2000-2013, we identified optimum trigger alert thresholds for scenarios of medium-risk and high-risk of dengue. FINDINGS: Our forecasts for June, 2014, showed that dengue risk was likely to be low in the host cities Brasília, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and São Paulo. The risk was medium in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Manaus. High-risk alerts were triggered for the northeastern cities of Recife (p(high)=19%), Fortaleza (p(high)=46%), and Natal (p(high)=48%). For these high-risk areas, particularly Natal, the forecasting system did well for previous years (in June, 2000-13). INTERPRETATION: This timely dengue early warning permits the Ministry of Health and local authorities to implement appropriate, city-specific mitigation and control actions ahead of the World Cup. FUNDING: European Commission's Seventh Framework Research Programme projects DENFREE, EUPORIAS, and SPECS; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.DENFREE projectEUPORIAS projectSPECS projectEuropean Commission's Seventh Framework Research ProgrammeConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeir

Dengue epidemic early warning system for Brazil

Copyright © 2015 UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction)The problem Brazil has reported more cases of dengue fever than anywhere else in the world this century1. Many cities have tropical and sub-tropical climate conditions that allow the dengue mosquito to thrive during warmer, wetter and more humid months, particularly in densely populated urban areas. Dengue epidemics depend on mosquito abundance, virus circulation and human susceptibility. In order to prepare for dengue epidemics, early warning systems, which take into account multiple dengue risk factors, are required to implement timely control measures. Seasonal climate forecasts provide an opportunity to anticipate dengue epidemics several months in advance ...European Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme project DENFREEEuropean Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme project EUPORIASEuropean Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme project SPECSConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ

Estimations of changes of the Sun's mass and the gravitation constant from the modern observations of planets and spacecraft

More than 635 000 positional observations (mostly radiotechnical) of planets and spacecraft (1961-2010), have been used for estimating possible changes of the gravitation constant, the solar mass, and semi-major axes of planets, as well as the value of the astronomical unit, related to them. The analysis of the observations has been performed on the basis of the EPM2010 ephemerides of IAA RAS in post-newtonian approximation. The obtained results indicate on decrease in the heliocentric gravitation constant per year at the level $\dot {GM_{Sun}}/GM_{Sun} = (-5.0 \pm 4.1) 10^{-14} (3\sigma).$ The positive secular changes of semi-major axes $\dot a_i/a_i$ have been obtained simultaneously for the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, as expected if the geliocentric gravitation constant is decreasing in century wise. The change of the mass of the Sun $M_{Sun}$ due to the solar radiation and the solar wind and the matter dropping on the Sun (comets, meteors, asteroids and dust) was estimated. Taking into account the maximal limits of the possible $M_{Sun}$ change, the value $\dot G/G$ falls within the interval $-4.2\cdot10^{-14} < \dot G/G < +7.5\cdot10^{-14}$ in year with the 95% probability. The astronomical unit (au) is only connected with the geliocentric gravitation constant by its definition. In the future, the connection between $GM_{Sun}$ and au should be fixed at the certain time moment, as it is inconvenient highly to have the changing value of the astronomical unit.Comment: 20 pages, 4 tables, accepted for publication in Solar System Research, 2011 (Astronomicheskii vestnik

Thinking about growth : a cognitive mapping approach to understanding small business development

School of Managemen

Jersey milk suitability for Cheddar cheese production: process, yield, quality and financial impacts

The aim of this study was to first evaluate the benefits of including Jersey milk into Holstein-Friesian milk on the Cheddar cheese making process and secondly, using the data gathered, identify the effects and relative importance of a wide range of milk components on milk coagulation properties and the cheese making process. Blending Jersey and Holstein-Friesian milk led to quadratic trends on the size of casein micelle and fat globule and on coagulation properties. However this was not found to affect the cheese making process. Including Jersey milk was found, on a pilot scale, to increase cheese yield (up to + 35 %) but it did not affect cheese quality, which was defined as compliance with the legal requirements of cheese composition, cheese texture, colour and grading scores. Profitability increased linearly with the inclusion of Jersey milk (up to 11.18 p£ L-1 of milk). The commercial trials supported the pilot plant findings, demonstrating that including Jersey milk increased cheese yield without having a negative impact on cheese quality, despite the inherent challenges of scaling up such a process commercially. The successful use of a large array of milk components to model the cheese making process challenged the commonly accepted view that fat, protein and casein content and protein to fat ratio are the main contributors to the cheese making process as other components such as the size of casein micelle and fat globule were found to also play a key role with small casein micelle and large fat globule reducing coagulation time, improving curd firmness, fat recovery and influencing cheese moisture and fat content. The findings of this thesis indicated that milk suitability for Cheddar making could be improved by the inclusion of Jersey milk and that more compositional factors need to be taken into account when judging milk suitability

Single-grain and multi-grain OSL dating of river terrace sediments in the Tabernas Basin, SE Spain

River terraces represent important records of landscape response to e.g. base-level change and tectonic movement. Both these driving forces are important in the southern Iberian Peninsula. In this study, Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating was used to date two principal river terraces in the Tabernas Basin, SE Spain. A total of 23 samples was collected from the fluvial terraces for dating using quartz OSL. Sixteen of the samples could not be dated because of low saturation levels (e.g. typical 2xD0 < 50 Gy). The remaining seven samples (5 fossil and 2 modern analogues) were investigated using both multi-grain and single-grain analysis. Single grain results show that: (i) measurements from multi-grain aliquots overestimate ages by up to ∼ 4 ka for modern analogues and young samples (<5 ka), presumably because (ii) the presence of many saturated grains has biased the multi-grain results to older ages. Despite the unfavourable luminescence characteristics we are able to present the first numerical ages for two terrace aggradation stages in the Tabernas Basin, one at ∼16 ka and the other within the last 2 ka