Beneficial reuse of a precast industry concrete sludge.

Precast concrete industries generate waste during routine hollow-core slab cutting (sludge 1) and mixer tank washing (sludge 2) operations. The wastes are typically disposed of by landfilling, an unsustainable practice. This study examined various options for better management of the two sludges: volume reduction for easier handling and transport, and sustainable, long-term beneficial reuse. Dewatering tests were carried out on sludge 1 to reduce the water content and volume of the sludge. Gravity settling yielded about 30% cake solids from 20%, and chemical conditioning with high charged cationic polymer resulted in 40% cake solids. Vacuum filtration and centrifugation achieved the highest cake solids of 50%. Cost analysis demonstrated that the vacuum filtration offered the least capital costs. This study demonstrated that precast concrete industry sludge could be beneficially reused or recycled to provide a long-term sustainable waste management option to the precast concrete industry sector. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .G69. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1471. Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

Complete assembly of a dengue virus type 3 genome from a recent genotype III clade by metagenomic sequencing of serum.

Background: Mosquito-borne flaviviruses, such as dengue and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), cause life-threatening diseases, particularly in the tropics. Methods: Here we performed unbiased metagenomic sequencing of RNA extracted from the serum of four patients and the plasma of one patient, all hospitalized at a tertiary care centre in South India with severe or prolonged febrile illness, together with the serum from one healthy control, in 2014. Results: We identified and assembled a complete dengue virus type 3 sequence from a case of severe dengue fever. We also identified a small number of JEV sequences in the serum of two adults with febrile illness, including one with severe dengue. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the dengue sequence belonged to genotype III. It has an estimated divergence time of 13.86 years from the most highly related Indian strains. In total, 11 amino acid substitutions were predicted for this strain in the antigenic envelope protein, when compared to the parent strain used for development of the first commercial dengue vaccine.  Conclusions: We demonstrate that both genome assembly and detection of a low number of viral sequences are possible through the unbiased sequencing of clinical material. These methods may help ascertain causal agents for febrile illnesses with no known cause