Modernism in Canada : Clement Greenberg and Canadian art

Traces the impact of Greenberg's promotion of "modernism" (i.e. post-painterly abstraction) on American, and especially Canadian art. Explores his relations with the Painters Eleven in Toronto, and with the art of Western Canada

The TRANSCEND University Consortium : integrated waste management

TRANSCEND (Transformative Science and Engineering for Nuclear Decommissioning) is a collaborative research consortium comprising 11 universities and 8 industry partners. The £9.4 million research program, funded primarily by the Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPSRC) Research Council of the UK, incorporates >40 projects in total, which will address some of the key challenges within the areas of nuclear decommissioning and waste management; including mobilization, processing, packaging, storage, transport and final disposal. This paper will outline a summary of the current progress and impact of Theme 1 - Integrated Waste Management. This theme focuses on underpinning science and engineering in areas of relevance to hazard reduction and decommissioning, where the three key work package objectives are: (1) New materials and methods for effluent decontamination; (2) Modelling and experiments for understanding pond and silo sludge/slurry behavior; (3) Innovative wasteform materials. In total, this theme has 15 different projects, delivered through both postdoctoral and PhD researchers, all with specific industry supervision from our partners, led by the NNL. The following provides a review of the project summaries to date, and their critical impact

The Variation in Groundwater Microbial Communities in an Unconfined Aquifer Contaminated by Multiple Nitrogen Contamination Sources

Aquifers provide integral freshwater resources and host ecosystems of largely uncharacterized, truncated endemic microorganisms. In recent history, many aquifers have become increasingly contaminated from various anthropogenic sources. To better understand the impacts of nitrogen contamination on native groundwater ecosystems, 16S rRNA sequencing of the groundwater microbial communities was carried out. Samples were taken from an aquifer known to be contaminated with nitrogen from multiple sources, including fertilizers and wastewater treatment plant effluents. In total, two primary contaminants were identified: NH4+ (−1 NH4+ min-median-max), and NO3− (−1 NO3− min-median-max). These contaminants were found to be associated with a decrease/increase in microbial species richness within affected groundwater for NH4+/NO3−, respectively. Important phyla were identified, including Proteobacteria, which had the highest abundance within samples unaffected by NH4+ (36–81% NH4+ unaffected, 4–33% NH4+ affected), and Planctomycetes (0.05–10% NH4+ unaffected, 43–72% NH4+ affected), which had the highest abundance within the NH4+ affected samples, likely due to its ability to perform anaerobic ammonia oxidation (ANAMMOX). Planctomycetes were identified as a potential indicator for the presence of NH4+ contamination. The analysis and characterization of sequencing data alongside physicochemical data showed potential to increase the depth of our understanding of contaminant behavior and fate within a contaminated aquifer using this type of data and analysis

Differentiation between Impacted and Unimpacted Microbial Communities of a Nitrogen Contaminated Aquifer

Nitrogen contamination is ubiquitous across the globe; as a result of this, the need to understand and predict the extent and effects of nitrogen contamination on microbial ecosystems is increasingly important. This paper utilises a dataset that provides a rare opportunity to observe varying contamination conditions in a single aquifer and understand the differences between potential background bores and two different types of contamination spread across the other bores. Using physicochemical and microbiological community analysis, this paper aims to determine the impacts of the two contaminants, nitrate and ammonia, on the microbial communities and the differences between polluted and physicochemical background bores. Total nitrogen (N) varied by a factor of over 2000 between bores, ranging from 0.07 to 155 mg L−1. Nitrate (NO3−) concentrations ranged from 150 to −1; ammonium (NH4+) concentrations ranged from 26 to −1. MANOVA analysis confirmed an overall significant relationship (p = 0.0052) between N variables and the physicochemical data (or status) of the three areas of contamination dubbed ‘contamination zones’. The contamination zones were defined by no known presence of contamination in the uncontaminated bores, the presence of NO3− contamination and the presence of NO3− and NH4+ contamination. PERMANOVA analysis confirmed that there was an overall significant difference in the microbial communities between the three contamination zones (p = 0.0002); however, the presence of NH4+ had a significant effect (p = 0.0012). In general, the nitrate-contaminated bores showed a decrease in the abundance of individual OTUs. We further confirmed that NH4+ contamination had a significant relationship with an increased percentage of abundance occupied by the Planctomycetota phylum (specifically the Candidatus Brocadia genus). It was found that one of the two background bores (BS-004) was likely also representative of natural microbial background, and another (BS-002) showed characteristics that may be representative of past or intermittent contamination. This paper demonstrates a possible way to determine the microbial background and discusses the potential uses for this information