Role of Organochlorine Pesticides in Chronic Kidney Diseases of Unknown Etiology

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) contributes to a significant burden on the healthcare system and economy worldwide. In the last two decades, a new form of CKD: chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in which the disease is not attributed to known causes has emerged as a major health issue in different geographical areas over the world mainly from farming community and has become a global concern today. Despite intense and numerous research works dedicated to CKDu, very little is known with certainty regarding its etiology and the pathophysiology behind its development. Recent evidences are emerging in favor of possible role of agrochemicals and pesticides in the pathogenesis of CKDu. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) due to their longer half-life and lipophilic nature persist long in the environment and are known to be biomagnified through food chain. Some study reports by the authors and a few others constitute the important body of evidences depicting the association between chronic exposures to OCPs and occurrence of CKDu through environmental contamination in farming as well as non-farming communities in different geographical areas around the globe

Process intensification education contributes to sustainable development goals: Part 2

Achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals requires industry and society to develop tools and processes that work at all scales, enabling goods delivery, services, and technology to large conglomerates and remote regions. Process Intensification (PI) is a technological advance that promises to deliver means to reach these goals, but higher education has yet to totally embrace the program. Here, we present practical examples on how to better teach the principles of PI in the context of the Bloom's taxonomy and summarise the current industrial use and the future demands for PI, as a continuation of the topics discussed in Part 1. In the appendices, we provide details on the existing PI courses around the world, as well as teaching activities that are showcased during these courses to aid students’ lifelong learning. The increasing number of successful commercial cases of PI highlight the importance of PI education for both students in academia and industrial staff.We acknowledge the sponsors of the Lorentz’ workshop on“Educating in PI”: The MESA+Institute of the University of Twente,Sonics and Materials (USA) and the PIN-NL Dutch Process Intensi-fication Network. DFR acknowledges support by The Netherlands Centre for Mul-tiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion (MCEC), an NWO Gravitationprogramme funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sci-ence of the government of The Netherlands. NA acknowledges the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)- TRR 63¨Integrierte Chemische Prozesse in flüssigen Mehrphasen-systemen¨(Teilprojekt A10) - 56091768. The participation by Robert Weber in the workshop and thisreport was supported by Laboratory Directed Research and Devel-opment funding at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).PNNL is a multiprogram national laboratory operated for theUS Department of Energy by Battelle under contract DE-AC05-76RL0183

Process intensification education contributes to sustainable development goals : part 1

In 2015 all the United Nations (UN) member states adopted 17 sustainable development goals (UN-SDG) as part of the 2030 Agenda, which is a 15-year plan to meet ambitious targets to eradicate poverty, protect the environment, and improve the quality of life around the world. Although the global community has progressed, the pace of implementation must accelerate to reach the UN-SDG time-line. For this to happen, professionals, institutions, companies, governments and the general public must become cognizant of the challenges that our world faces and the potential technological solutions at hand, including those provided by chemical engineering. Process intensification (PI) is a recent engineering approach with demonstrated potential to significantly improve process efficiency and safety while reducing cost. It offers opportunities for attaining the UN-SDG goals in a cost-effective and timely manner. However, the pedagogical tools to educate undergraduate, graduate students, and professionals active in the field of PI lack clarity and focus. This paper sets out the state-of-the-art, main discussion points and guidelines for enhanced PI teaching, deliberated by experts in PI with either an academic or industrial background, as well as representatives from government and specialists in pedagogy gathered at the Lorentz Center (Leiden, The Netherlands) in June 2019 with the aim of uniting the efforts on education in PI and produce guidelines. In this Part 1, we discuss the societal and industrial needs for an educational strategy in the framework of PI. The terminology and background information on PI, related to educational implementation in industry and academia, are provided as a preamble to Part 2, which presents practical examples that will help educating on Process Intensification

Prospective, multicentre study of screening, investigation and management of hyponatraemia after subarachnoid haemorrhage in the UK and Ireland

Background: Hyponatraemia often occurs after subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). However, its clinical significance and optimal management are uncertain. We audited the screening, investigation and management of hyponatraemia after SAH. Methods: We prospectively identified consecutive patients with spontaneous SAH admitted to neurosurgical units in the United Kingdom or Ireland. We reviewed medical records daily from admission to discharge, 21 days or death and extracted all measurements of serum sodium to identify hyponatraemia (<135 mmol/L). Main outcomes were death/dependency at discharge or 21 days and admission duration >10 days. Associations of hyponatraemia with outcome were assessed using logistic regression with adjustment for predictors of outcome after SAH and admission duration. We assessed hyponatraemia-free survival using multivariable Cox regression. Results: 175/407 (43%) patients admitted to 24 neurosurgical units developed hyponatraemia. 5976 serum sodium measurements were made. Serum osmolality, urine osmolality and urine sodium were measured in 30/166 (18%) hyponatraemic patients with complete data. The most frequently target daily fluid intake was >3 L and this did not differ during hyponatraemic or non-hyponatraemic episodes. 26% (n/N=42/164) patients with hyponatraemia received sodium supplementation. 133 (35%) patients were dead or dependent within the study period and 240 (68%) patients had hospital admission for over 10 days. In the multivariable analyses, hyponatraemia was associated with less dependency (adjusted OR (aOR)=0.35 (95% CI 0.17 to 0.69)) but longer admissions (aOR=3.2 (1.8 to 5.7)). World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies grade I–III, modified Fisher 2–4 and posterior circulation aneurysms were associated with greater hazards of hyponatraemia. Conclusions: In this comprehensive multicentre prospective-adjusted analysis of patients with SAH, hyponatraemia was investigated inconsistently and, for most patients, was not associated with changes in management or clinical outcome. This work establishes a basis for the development of evidence-based SAH-specific guidance for targeted screening, investigation and management of high-risk patients to minimise the impact of hyponatraemia on admission duration and to improve consistency of patient care

Exploratory Study on Nuclear-powered Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers

Dredging is an energy-intensive operation and, due to the nature of the process, there are large and rapid fluctuations in the power requirement. With the signing of the Paris Agreement, implementation of IMO 2020 and expansion of ECAs, the external pressures for the reduction of different emissions(CO2, SOx, PM, and/or NOx) in dredging are rising. Additional motivating factors are the rise in the fuel expenses which form a major component of dredging project costs and the incentives from regulatory authorities to reduce the carbon intensity in dredging operations. Often, the achievement of one objective leads to deterioration of another, for example, the use of IMO-compliant fuel can increase the overall carbon emissions. In recent years, alternative fuels like LNG and biofuels have been explored. However, they suffer from their own set of issues and with the predicted trends, the usage of these alternative fuels would imply lower production and earnings, especially in large dredging projects. In this work, a marine power plant concept that has been rarely discussed in the context of dredging is explored and forwarded: a nuclear-based system. Fundamentally, such a power plant addresses the issues related to the emissions and essentially eliminates bunkering stops. This was the first study focused on nuclear-powered Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers (TSHD), the most common type of dredging vessel. In this work, a system-level study was carried out to ascertain the retrofittability of a nuclear-based system on four existing TSHDs. The feasibility of retrofitting the nuclear-based system has been studied by comparison of mass and volume requirements of the nuclear power plant, with the mass and volume of the engine and fuel storage system of current dredging vessels. No re-design of the vessel was considered here.The ”inherently safe” High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) with Nuclear Air-Brayton Cycle (NABC) was determined as the nuclear power system of choice. It appeared that for such a system,the TSHD sizes that are interesting for the deployment starts around 12000 m3 hopper capacities.The bigger the hopper capacities than this baseline, the better the nuclear system performed. It was found that despite the satisfaction of the mass and volume constraints, a redesign of the TSHD is required for the placement of the reactor and for the compliance with the nuclear related regulations.In addition to the nuclear power plant, the retrofitting of the TSHDs with Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) in combination with solid, compressed and liquid H2 storage and batteries was considered. With the current commercially available offerings, PEMFC with liquid or 500 bar compressed H2 storage were found to be suitable for maintenance dredging or capital dredging for a short duration(couple of days). However, it was established that the realisation of endurance level of current dredgers is not possible without a reduction of hopper capacities or factorial increase in energy density of storage. Further, the smaller TSHDs were found to be better suited to use PEMFC or battery-based systems.A part of this work also tried to answer the pertinent question of the third party liability insurance premiums for a nuclear-powered vessel and the regulations such a ship would be subjected to. Further, a preliminary business case was developed and the sustainability of the concept was evaluated. It was realised that the technological forces and trends like the development of Small Modular Reactors, deep-sea mining and autonomous ships, could favour the development of a fleet of nuclear-powered dredging vessels in the future. However, the regulations and the support for these vessels would be highly dependent on the flag country and operational location.Mechanical Engineerin

An unusually large adenomatoid odontogenic tumor with involvement of the ethmoidal sinus: A rare case report

Adenomatoid odontogenic tumor (AOT) is an uncommon nonaggressive tumor of the odontogenic epithelium with duct-like structures and varying degrees of inductive changes in the stroma. It comprises only 0.1% of tumors of the jaw and 3% of all odontogenic tumors. The majority of the cases (88%) are diagnosed in the second and third decades of life. The incidence is higher in males than in females. The tumor has a predilection for the anterior maxilla, most commonly associated with maxillary canine; however, involvement of the maxillary antrum is extremely rare. We report an unusually large AOT of the maxilla along with the computed tomography images in a 17-year-old female patient encroaching the maxillary sinus, orbital floor, nasal septum, ethmoidal sinus on the right side. It was also associated with an impacted canine. The patient was subjected for complete enucleation along with the removal of the impacted tooth. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that such a large AOT with involvement of the ethmoidal sinus has been reported