Sustainability assessment of steel fibre reinforced concrete pavements

The current scenario of depleting resources has lead to a major thrust in developing and applying highly sustainable solutions to construction industry. Therefore, it has become essential to devise designs based on materials that cost the least for the transportation network and at the same time have a minimum environmental impact. Though there are a few modern material solutions that may meet these criteria, like the use of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) for pavement constructions, a proper evaluation of the performance and impact of utilization of such materials is lacking. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) offer the means to evaluate the sustainability, and have been used in this paper to provide frameworks analysing Asphalt, Jointed Plain concrete (JPC) and Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete pavements. In this work, asphalt, JPC and SFRC pavement sections have been designed as per the respective IRC guidelines so as to get equivalent designs for the given traffic loading, environmental and material conditions. Subsequently, LCCA is done as per the procedure provided in the Federal Highway Administration’s Interim Technical bulletin and LCA is done by using the process approach for each of the pavements. The assessment indicates where sustainable practices can be directed to so as to minimize environmental impacts in the initial stage of the pavement life cycle. The paper also discusses the limitations and difficulties of carrying out life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis for highways in India

Tertiary-Treated Municipal Wastewater is a Significant Point Source of Antibiotic Resistance Genes Into Duluth-Superior Harbor

In this study, the impact of tertiary-treated municipal wastewater on the quantity of several antibiotic resistance determinants in Duluth-Superior Harbor was investigated by collecting surface water and sediment samples from 13 locations in Duluth-Superior Harbor, the St. Louis River, and Lake Superior. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to target three different genes encoding resistance to tetracycline (tet(A), tet(X), and tet(W)), the gene encoding the integrase of class 1 integrons (intI1), and total bacterial abundance (16S rRNA genes) as well as total and human fecal contamination levels (16S rRNA genes specific to the genus Bacteroides). The quantities of tet(A), tet(X), tet(W), intI1, total Bacteroides, and human-specific Bacteroides were typically 20-fold higher in the tertiary-treated wastewater than in nearby surface water samples. In contrast, the quantities of these genes in the St. Louis River and Lake Superior were typically below detection. Analysis of sequences of tet(W) gene fragments from four different samples collected throughout the study site supported the conclusion that tertiary-treated municipal wastewater is a point source of resistance genes into Duluth-Superior Harbor. This study demonstrates that the discharge of exceptionally treated municipal wastewater can have a statistically significant effect on the quantities of antibiotic resistance genes in otherwise pristine surface waters

The state of play: securities of childhood - insecurities of children

This article is broadly concerned with the positioning of children, both within and outside the subject area of International Relations. It considers the costs of an adult- 5 centric standpoint in security studies and contrasts this with investments made seemingly on behalf of children and their security. It begins by looking at how children and childhoods are constructed and contained - yet also defy categorization - at some cost to their protection. The many competing children and childhoods that are invoked in security discourses and partially sustain their victimcy are then illustrated. It is 10 argued that at their entry point into academia they are essentialized and sentimentalized. Power relations which subvert, yet also rely on children and childhoods can only be disrupted through a reconfiguration of politics and agency which includes an engagement with political literacy on a societal level and acknowledgement of the ubiquitous presence of war in all our live

Increased waterborne blaNDM-1 resistance gene abundances associated with seasonal human pilgrimages to the Upper Ganges River

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is often rooted in inappropriate antibiotic use, but poor water quality and inadequate sanitation exacerbate the problem, especially in emerging countries. An example is increasing multi-AR due to mobile carbapenemases, such as NDM-1 protein (coded by blaNDM-1 genes), which can produce extreme drug-resistant phenotypes. In 2010, NDM-1 positive isolates and blaNDM-1 genes were detected in surface waters across Delhi and have since been detected across the urban world. However, little is known about blaNDM-1 levels in more pristine locations, such as the headwaters of the Upper Ganges River. This area is of particular interest because it receives massive numbers of visitors during seasonal pilgrimages in May/June, including visitors from urban India. Here we quantified blaNDM-1 abundances, other AR genes (ARG) and coliform bacteria in sediments and water column samples from seven sites in the Rishikesh-Haridwar region of the Upper Ganges and five sites on the Yamuna River in Delhi to contrast blaNDM-1 levels and water quality conditions between season and region. Water quality in the Yamuna was very poor (e.g., anoxia at all sites), and blaNDM-1 abundances were high across sites in water (5.4 ± 0.4 log(blaNDM-1·mL-1); 95% confidence interval) and sediment (6.3 ± 0.7 log(blaNDM-1·mg-1)) samples from both seasons. In contrast, water column blaNDM-1 abundances were very low across all sites (2.1 ± 0.6 log(blaNDM-1·mL-1)) in February in the Upper Ganges and water quality was good (e.g., near saturation oxygen). However, per capita blaNDM-1 levels were 20 times greater in June in the Ganges water column relative to February and blaNDM-1 levels significantly correlated with fecal coliform levels (r=0.61; p=0.007). Given waste management infrastructure is limited in Rishikesh-Haridwar; data imply blaNDM-1 levels are higher in visitor's wastes than local residents, which results in seasonally higher blaNDM-1 levels in the river. Pilgrimage areas without adequate waste treatment are possible "hot spots" for AR transmission, and waste treatment must be improved to reduce broader AR dissemination via exposed returning visitors

Hick and Radhakrishnan on Religious Diversity: Back to the Kantian Noumenon

We shall examine some conceptual tensions in Hick’s ‘pluralism’ in the light of S. Radhakrishnan’s reformulation of classical Advaita. Hick himself often quoted Radhakrishnan’s translations from the Hindu scriptures in support of his own claims about divine ineffability, transformative experience and religious pluralism. However, while Hick developed these themes partly through an adaptation of Kantian epistemology, Radhakrishnan derived them ultimately from Śaṁkara (c.800 CE), and these two distinctive points of origin lead to somewhat different types of reconstruction of the diversity of world religions. Our argument will highlight the point that Radhakrishnan is not a ‘pluralist’ in terms of Hick’s understanding of the Real. The Advaitin ultimate, while it too like Hick’s Real cannot be encapsulated by human categories, is, however, not strongly ineffable, because some substantive descriptions, according to the Advaitic tradition, are more accurate than others. Our comparative analysis will reveal that they differ because they are located in two somewhat divergent metaphysical schemes. In turn, we will be able to revisit, through this dialogue between Hick and Radhakrishnan, the intensely vexed question of whether Hick’s version of pluralism is in fact a form of covert exclusivism.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11841-015-0459-

Broad host range plasmids can invade an unexpectedly diverse fraction of a soil bacterial community

Conjugal plasmids can provide microbes with full complements of new genes and constitute potent vehicles for horizontal gene transfer. Conjugal plasmid transfer is deemed responsible for the rapid spread of antibiotic resistance among microbes. While broad host range plasmids are known to transfer to diverse hosts in pure culture, the extent of their ability to transfer in the complex bacterial communities present in most habitats has not been comprehensively studied. Here, we isolated and characterized transconjugants with a degree of sensitivity not previously realized to investigate the transfer range of IncP- and IncPromA-type broad host range plasmids from three proteobacterial donors to a soil bacterial community. We identified transfer to many different recipients belonging to 11 different bacterial phyla. The prevalence of transconjugants belonging to diverse Gram-positive Firmicutes and Actinobacteria suggests that inter-Gram plasmid transfer of IncP-1 and IncPromA-type plasmids is a frequent phenomenon. While the plasmid receiving fractions of the community were both plasmid- and donor- dependent, we identified a core super-permissive fraction that could take up different plasmids from diverse donor strains. This fraction, comprising 80% of the identified transconjugants, thus has the potential to dominate IncP- and IncPromA-type plasmid transfer in soil. Our results demonstrate that these broad host range plasmids have a hitherto unrecognized potential to transfer readily to very diverse bacteria and can, therefore, directly connect large proportions of the soil bacterial gene pool. This finding reinforces the evolutionary and medical significances of these plasmids.Fil: Klumper, Uli. Technical University of Denmark; DinamarcaFil: Riber, Leise. Universidad de Copenhagen; DinamarcaFil: Dechesne, Arnaud. Technical University of Denmark; DinamarcaFil: Sannazzaro, Analía Inés. Universidad de Copenhagen; DinamarcaFil: Hansen, Lars H.. Universidad de Copenhagen; Dinamarca. Aarhus University. Roskilde; DinamarcaFil: Sørensen, Søren. Universidad de Copenhagen; DinamarcaFil: Smets, Barth F. Technical University of Denmark; Dinamarc