Transitioning towards circular economy through municipal solid waste analysis and characterisation using SowaCLINK software

Municipal solid waste constitutes environmental challenges globally, especially in developing countries, due to increasing waste generation, population growth, inadequate infrastructure, lack of data and poor planning. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive waste audit on the municipal solid waste generated in Aba, a metropolis in southeastern Nigeria. Aba is a commercial city considered the messiest because of the massive municipal solid waste generation and poor management. The study investigated the energy potential and waste regeneration. Municipal solid waste data was sought to provide insight into the quantity and composition of municipal solid waste. The methodology was site-based, in line with the standard test method for determining unprocessed municipal solid waste (ASTM-D5231-92) and SowaCLINK software, a computer-based environmental application, was used for characterization. Linear extrapolation was adopted to quantify the rate of municipal solid waste generated. The geometric mean was applied to forecast the area’s population for a 10-year design period. The chemical elements of the characterized municipal solid waste were utilized based on the ASTM-D5291 standard for municipal solid waste thermochemical conversion, and the high and low heating values were analyzed. The outcomes provided energy recovery potential, the electrical power potential, and the power to the grid of electrical power of the municipal solid waste. The results obtained were 0.7813 kg/p/d and 490,268 t/y for a population of 1,719,185 persons. The percentage of the municipal solid waste components with energy potential was 71%, comprising 48% combustible and 23% organic components on average. The high heating value computed was 176.5 MJ/kg, and the low heating value was 14 MJ/kg. The energy recovery potential was 3,709,463 MWh, the electrical power potential was 38,680 MW, and the power to the grid was 26.1 MW daily. The research reveals a promising direction in transitioning from the linear economy of municipal solid waste management toward implementing an integrated sustainable municipal solid waste management based on the circular economy model. The study recommends adopting detailed steps to proffer solutions to the environmental challenges associated with municipal solid waste in most low-middle-income countries to achieve sustainable municipal solid waste management while generating electricity and bio-fertilizers through incineration and anaerobic digestion

Rate Movie App: Implementation of K-Nearest Neighbors Algorithm in the Development of Decision Support System for Philippine Movie Rating and Classification

Movies that are publicly exhibited in the Philippine Cinema, regardless if produced locally (local films) and/or outside the country (foreign films) undergo a thorough evaluation before public exhibition to properly identify suited audiences. There are many factors that contribute to the classification and rating of a specific movie. Movies play a vital role for Filipino culture as for some people; these serve as their leisure activity, for other people, these are not just a leisure activity instead a form of visual art that may send important messages to the audiences and/or may re-enact human personal experiences. It is very important that movie(s) will be classified accordingly without any form of biases. This paper promotes a Decision Support System that can be used in predicting movie classification and rating using historically evaluated movies from 2010 to 2017. The study considers the user ratings on the following attributes: Sex & Nudity, Violence & Gore, Profanity, Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking and Frightening and Intense Scenes scrapped from a public movie database. Along with these considerations are the genre(s) associated with a movie. The study conducted revealed that K-Nearest Neighbors Algorithm outperforms Naive Bayes and J48/C4.5 Algorithm in classifying Philippine Movie rating with 92.80% accuracy as compared to 68.70% and 56.79% for Naive Bayes and J48/C4.5 algorithm respectively. The developed decision support system implements the K-Nearest Neighbors algorithm to satisfy the objectives mentioned. With this, Review Committees who evaluate movies may have guides in making critical decisions in the domain of movie evaluation

Associated degeneration of ventral tegmental area dopaminergic neurons in the rat nigrostriatal lactacystin model of parkinsonism and their neuroprotection by valproate

AbstractParkinson’s disease (PD) manifests clinically as bradykinesia, rigidity, and development of a resting tremor, primarily due to degeneration of dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathways in the brain. Intranigral administration of the irreversible ubiquitin proteasome system inhibitor, lactacystin, has been used extensively to model nigrostriatal degeneration in rats, and study the effects of candidate neuroprotective agents on the integrity of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal system. Recently however, adjacent extra-nigral brain regions such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have been noted to also become affected in this model, yet their integrity in studies of candidate neuroprotective agents in the model have largely been overlooked. Here we quantify the extent and distribution of dopaminergic degeneration in the VTA of rats intranigrally lesioned with lactacystin, and quantify the extent of VTA dopaminergic neuroprotection after systemic treatment with an epigenetic therapeutic agent, valproate, shown previously to protect dopaminergic SNpc neurons in this model. We found that unilateral intranigral administration of lactacystin resulted in a 53.81% and 31.72% interhemispheric loss of dopaminergic SNpc and VTA neurons, respectively. Daily systemic treatment of lactacystin lesioned rats with valproate however resulted in dose-dependant neuroprotection of VTA neurons. Our findings demonstrate that not only is the VTA also affected in the intranigral lactacystin rat model of PD, but that this extra-nigral brain region is substrate for neuroprotection by valproate, an agent shown previously to induce neuroprotection and neurorestoration of SNpc dopaminergic neurons in this model. Our results therefore suggest that valproate is a candidate for extra-nigral as well as intra-nigral neuroprotection

Pathogenesis of experimental bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE): estimation of tissue infectivity according to incubation period§

This paper reports the results of tissue infectivity assays of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) agent in orally exposed cattle at stages during the incubation period. Estimations of the titre of infectivity in central nervous system (CNS), certain peripheral nerve ganglia and distal ileum tissue were made according to time post exposure from the relationship between incubation period and dose for RIII mice and C57bl mice using data from titrations of brain material from cases of BSE. The rate of increase of infectivity in the bovine CNS was then estimated, taking into account these tissue infectivity titres, the variability of the brain titre of clinical field cases of BSE, and the probability density of the expected number of months before clinical onset of each infected bovine. The doubling time for CNS was shown to equal 1.2 months. The titre in the thoracic dorsal root ganglia (DRG) was, on average, approximately 1 log units less than CNS, and cervical DRG approximately 0.5 log less than thoracic DRG. The pattern of increase of infectivity in the distal ileum is that of an initial increase up to 14–18 months post exposure, followed by a decrease, which is likely to be highly variable between animals. These results will be informative for future risk assessments of BSE, especially in relation to reviewing current control measures