Degrading sludge with cellulase complex

The ability of indigenous and commercial cellulase complexes to degrade native and pretreated sludge was evaluated. Indigenous enzyme was produced in our laboratory, where as commercial cellulase was purchased from a chemical supplier. Pretreatments included detergent solutions, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, sulfur trioxide, alkaline peroxide and sonification. Glucose production was used to infer degradability. Compared controls (no glucose produced), hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide treatment resulted in most degradation. Other treatments were much less effective. The commercial cellulase degraded standards (cellulose) much more rapidly and extensively than indigenous. Although commercial cellulase and either sodium hydroxide or hydrochloric acid treatment increased degradability of sludge considerably above the controls, improvement was much less than expected. Physical appearance of sludges was altered greatly by pretreatment but the implications of this are unclear.Project # G-1572-06 Agreement # 14-08-0001-G-157

The Nature Press, Vol. 3

Nature News was a newsletter publication about activities at the Cheadle Center for Biodiveristy and Ecological Restoration

Indirect cyclopexy for treatment of a chronic traumatic cyclodialysis cleft with hypotony

Cyclodialysis cleft is a rare clinical finding and therefore, reports on surgical repair techniques in the literature are limited. Additionally, hypotony can make repair technically challenging. We share a novel, simple surgical approach to management of a case of chronic traumatic cyclodialysis cleft with a successful outcome

Embryonic Signaling Pathways and Rhabdomyosarcoma: Contributions to Cancer Development and Opportunities for Therapeutic Targeting

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue sarcoma of childhood and adolescence, accounting for approximately 7% of childhood cancers. Current therapies include nonspecific cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens, radiation therapy, and surgery; however, these multimodality strategies are unsuccessful in the majority of patients with high-risk disease. It is generally believed that these tumors represent arrested or aberrant skeletal muscle development, and, accordingly, developmental signaling pathways critical to myogenesis such as Notch, WNT, and Hedgehog may represent new therapeutic targets. In this paper, we summarize the current preclinical studies linking these embryonic pathways to rhabdomyosarcoma tumorigenesis and provide support for the investigation of targeted therapies in this embryonic cancer

Leaf tensile strength, "in vitro" digestibility, and fiber component relationships in tall fescue

Em um programa de melhoramento de forrageiras, a identificação de plantas com elevado valor nutritivo, é um dos fatores importantes para melhorar o desempenho animal. Interrelações significativas entre características físicas e químicas talvez possam ser utilizadas como um critério para a seleção de novas cultivares de festuca-alta de maior valor nutritivo. Os objetivos deste experimento foram: a. avaliar a tensão foliar (TF) e a digestibilidade in vitro da matéria seca (DIVMS) e dos constituintes da parede celular; b. analisar as associações entre essas características com a TF e c. determinar a eficiência da TF como uma técnica para a seleção de novos germoplasmas de festuca-alta, com forragem de melhor qualidade. Setenta e um genótipos de festuca alta foram avaliados neste experimento. Foi encontrada uma variabilidade genética significativa para TF nesta população de festuca-alta. Geralmente, as correlações de TF com DIVMS e componentes da parede celular não foram significativas, enquanto que as correlações de DIVMS com os componentes da parede celular foram altamente significativas e negativas. Conforme esperado, houve baixa repetibilidade de correlações de caracteres nos dois anos. A "análise de coeficientes de trilha" demonstrou que a celulose e a lignina foram os caracteres com os maiores efeitos diretos na TF e na DIVMS.In a forage breeding program it is necessary to identify germplasms with high forage quality, able to positively influence animal performance. The interrelationships between leaf tensile strength (LTS) and chemical composition parameters may provide a useful criterion for screening tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) for herbage quality in a breeding program. Seventy-one genetically diverse genotypes of tall fescue were randomly selected from a broad-based population to evaluate LTS (leaf tensile strength), in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), cellulose (CELL), lignin (ADL), hemicellulose (HEMI), ADL/ADF and ASH, to determine the associations among these traits with LTS, and the importance of LTS as a technique for screening tall fescue for herbage quality. Significant genetic variation was found in this gene pool for LTS. The majority of the correlations of LTS with IVDMD and with fiber components were not significantly different from zero while correlations of IVDMD with fiber components were highly significant and negative. As expected, character correlation repeatabilities between years were usually low. Path coefficient analysis showed that CELL and ADL were two important components with large direct effects on LTS and on IVDMD

Leaf tensile strength, "in vitro" digestibility, and fiber component relationships in tall fescue

Em um programa de melhoramento de forrageiras, a identificação de plantas com elevado valor nutritivo, é um dos fatores importantes para melhorar o desempenho animal. Interrelações significativas entre características físicas e químicas talvez possam ser utilizadas como um critério para a seleção de novas cultivares de festuca-alta de maior valor nutritivo. Os objetivos deste experimento foram: a. avaliar a tensão foliar (TF) e a digestibilidade in vitro da matéria seca (DIVMS) e dos constituintes da parede celular; b. analisar as associações entre essas características com a TF e c. determinar a eficiência da TF como uma técnica para a seleção de novos germoplasmas de festuca-alta, com forragem de melhor qualidade. Setenta e um genótipos de festuca alta foram avaliados neste experimento. Foi encontrada uma variabilidade genética significativa para TF nesta população de festuca-alta. Geralmente, as correlações de TF com DIVMS e componentes da parede celular não foram significativas, enquanto que as correlações de DIVMS com os componentes da parede celular foram altamente significativas e negativas. Conforme esperado, houve baixa repetibilidade de correlações de caracteres nos dois anos. A "análise de coeficientes de trilha" demonstrou que a celulose e a lignina foram os caracteres com os maiores efeitos diretos na TF e na DIVMS.In a forage breeding program it is necessary to identify germplasms with high forage quality, able to positively influence animal performance. The interrelationships between leaf tensile strength (LTS) and chemical composition parameters may provide a useful criterion for screening tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) for herbage quality in a breeding program. Seventy-one genetically diverse genotypes of tall fescue were randomly selected from a broad-based population to evaluate LTS (leaf tensile strength), in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), cellulose (CELL), lignin (ADL), hemicellulose (HEMI), ADL/ADF and ASH, to determine the associations among these traits with LTS, and the importance of LTS as a technique for screening tall fescue for herbage quality. Significant genetic variation was found in this gene pool for LTS. The majority of the correlations of LTS with IVDMD and with fiber components were not significantly different from zero while correlations of IVDMD with fiber components were highly significant and negative. As expected, character correlation repeatabilities between years were usually low. Path coefficient analysis showed that CELL and ADL were two important components with large direct effects on LTS and on IVDMD

Epidermal growth factor potentiates renal cell death in hydronephrotic neonatal mice, but cell survival in rats

BACKGROUND: Epidermal growth factor (EGF) markedly attenuates tubular apoptosis induced by unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) in the neonatal rat, and reduces apoptosis induced by mechanical stretch of cultured rat tubular cells. METHODS: To investigate the role of EGF in modulating apoptosis resulting from UUO, neonatal wild type and mutant mice lacking EGF (knockout), or with diminished EGF receptor activity (waved-2 mutant) were compared to control mice for tubular apoptosis and atrophy. Rat and mouse kidneys were compared for localization of the EGF receptor. Apoptosis was also measured in cultured mouse tubular cells subjected to stretch and exposed to EGF. RESULTS: UUO reduced endogenous renal EGF expression in wild-type mice. Unlike the rat, exogenous EGF did not decrease tubular apoptosis or atrophy in the obstructed kidney, and significantly increased stretch-induced apoptosis of cultured mouse tubular cells. Tubular apoptosis was 50% lower in the obstructed kidney of EGF knockout and waved-2 mice relative to wild type and heterozygous animals. Exogenous EGF increased tubular apoptosis and doubled atrophy in the obstructed kidney of waved-2 mice. Species differences in EGF receptor localization were detected in 3-day-old kidneys. CONCLUSION: EGF acts as a survival factor in the neonatal rat, but potentiates tubular cell death in the neonatal mouse. Species differences are maintained in cultured cells, suggesting that differences in EGF receptor signaling underlie these opposing effects

Does safety climate moderate the influence of staffing adequacy and work conditions on nurse injuries?

Hospital nurses have one of the highest work-related injury rates in the United States. Yet, approaches to improving employee safety have generally focused on attempts to modify individual behavior through enforced compliance with safety rules and mandatory participation in safety training. We examined a theoretical model that investigated the impact on nurse injuries (back injuries and needlesticks) of critical structural variables (staffing adequacy, work engagement, and work conditions) and further tested whether safety climate moderated these effects. A longitudinal, non-experimental, organizational study, conducted in 281 medical-surgical units in 143 general acute care hospitals in the United States. Work engagement and work conditions were positively related to safety climate, but not directly to nurse back injuries or needlesticks. Safety climate moderated the relationship between work engagement and needlesticks, while safety climate moderated the effect of work conditions on both needlesticks and back injuries, although in unexpected ways. DISCUSSION AND IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Our findings suggest that positive work engagement and work conditions contribute to enhanced safety climate and can reduce nurse injuries

An experimental study on the response of blanket bog vegetation and water tables to ditch blocking

We studied the effect of ditch blocking on vegetation composition and water-table depths in a blanket peatland. Measurements were made for a period of four years (water tables) and five years (vegetation) in the inter-ditch areas of three experimental treatments: (i) open ditches, (ii) ditches blocked with closely-spaced dams and (iii) ditches partially infilled with peat and blocked with dams. It is often assumed that ditch blocking will lead to an increase in the abundance of Sphagnum and, potentially, a reduction in the abundance of sedges, particularly the cotton grasses. However, our data show no treatment effects on the abundance of either group. We did find an effect of time, with the abundance of both sedges and Sphagnum spp. varying significantly between some years. For the sedges there was no systematic change over time, while for the Sphagnum spp. abundance tended to increase through the study period. This systematic change was not related to a measure of the vigour of the sedges, although vigour was lower towards the end of the study compared to the beginning. Our vegetation data are consistent with our water-table data. As with plant type abundance, we did not find any statistically significant differences in water-table depths between treatments, both for annual averages and summer averages. We comment on why ditch blocking does not seem to have affected water tables and vegetation composition at our study site