Machine Learning Approach to Predict Quality Parameters for Bacterial Consortium-Treated Hospital Wastewater and Phytotoxicity Assessment on Radish, Cauliflower, Hot Pepper, Rice and Wheat Crops

Raw hospital wastewater is a source of excessive heavy metals and pharmaceutical pol-lutants. In water-stressed countries such as Pakistan, the practice of unsafe reuse by local farmers for crop irrigation is of major concern. In our previous work, we developed a low-cost bacterial consortium wastewater treatment method. Here, in a two-part study, we first aimed to find what physico-chemical parameters were the most important for differentiating consortium-treated and untreated wastewater for its safe reuse. This was achieved using a Kruskal–Wallis test on a suite of physico-chemical measurements to find those parameters which were differentially abundant between consortium-treated and untreated wastewater. The differentially abundant parameters were then input to a Random Forest classifier. The classifier showed that ‘turbidity’ was the most influential parameter for predicting biotreatment. In the second part of our study, we wanted to know if the consortium-treated wastewater was safe for crop irrigation. We therefore carried out a plant growth experiment using a range of popular crop plants in Pakistan (Radish, Cauliflower, Hot pepper, Rice and Wheat), which were grown using irrigation from consortium-treated and untreated hospital wastewater at a range of dilutions (turbidity levels) and performed a phytotoxicity assessment. Our results showed an increasing trend in germination indices and a decreasing one in phytotoxicity indices in plants after irrigation with consortium-treated hospital wastewater (at each dilution/turbidity measure). The comparative study of growth between plants showed the following trend: Cauliflower > Radish > Wheat > Rice > Hot pepper. Cauliflower was the most adaptive plant (PI: −0.28, −0.13, −0.16, −0.06) for the treated hospital wastewater, while hot pepper was susceptible for reuse; hence, we conclude that bacterial consortium-treated hospital wastewater is safe for reuse for the irrigation of cauliflower, radish, wheat and rice. We further conclude that turbidity is the most influential parameter for predicting bio-treatment efficiency prior to water reuse. This method, therefore, could represent a low-cost, low-tech and safe means for farmers to grow crops in water stressed areas

Effect of exogenous methyl jasmonate on growth, gas exchange and chlorophyll contents of soybean subjected to drought

Drought is considered as one of the major constraints to crop production worldwide. Methyl jasmonate (MJ) is a plant-signaling molecule that elicits a wide variety of plant responses ranging from morphological to molecular level. A pot-culture study was undertaken to investigate the possible role of MJ-treatment on growth, gas exchange and chlorophyll contents in soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill.) plants subjected to water stress. The soybean plants were grown under normal water supply conditions till blooming and were then subjected to moisture stress by withholding water followed by foliar application of MJ at the rate of 50 μM. Drought stress severely hampered the growth, leaf gas-exchange attributes as well as the photosynthetic pigment contents. It was evident from the experimental results that, MJ-treatment led to further impairment in growth by inhibiting the leaf gas exchange attributes and chlorophyll contents. It is worth noted that, MJ-treatment also hampered the performance of soybean crop under well-watered conditions. In all, MJ-treatment appeared to arrest the growth, impaired leaf gas-exchange attributes and caused the loss of chlorophyll contents of soybean plants under water deficit conditions.Key words: Chlorophyll contents, drought stress, growth, gas exchange, soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill.)

Suppression of Anderson localization in disordered metamaterials

We study wave propagation in mixed, 1D disordered stacks of alternating right- and left-handed layers and reveal that the introduction of metamaterials substantially suppresses Anderson localization. At long wavelengths, the localization length in mixed stacks is orders of magnitude larger than for normal structures, proportional to the sixth power of the wavelength, in contrast to the usual quadratic wavelength dependence of normal systems. Suppression of localization is also exemplified in long-wavelength resonances which largely disappear when left-handed materials are introduced. © 2007 The American Physical Society

Novel Phage Lysin Abp013 against Acinetobacter baumannii.

As antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to pose an ever-growing global health threat, propelling us into a post-antibiotic era, novel alternative therapeutic agents are urgently required. Lysins are bacteriophage-encoded peptidoglycan hydrolases that display great potential as a novel class of antimicrobials for therapeutics. While lysins against Gram-positive bacteria are highly effective when applied exogenously, it is challenging for lysins to access and cleave the peptidoglycan of Gram-negative bacteria due to their outer membrane. In this study, we identify a novel phage lysin Abp013 against Acinetobacter baumannii. Abp013 exhibited significant lytic activity against multidrug-resistant strains of A. baumannii. Notably, we found that Abp013 was able to tolerate the presence of human serum by up to 10%. Using confocal microscopy and LIVE/DEAD staining, we show that Abp013 can access and kill the bacterial cells residing in the biofilm. These results highlight the intrinsic bacteriolytic property of Abp013, suggesting the promising use of Abp013 as a novel therapeutic agent

The human environmental balance

A future policy instrument for assessing the consequences of changes (already made) to the physical environment can be found in the instrument known as the human environmental balance. By taking all relevant aspects into account when using this instrument, present and future serious defects along with necessary areas of focus will become clear. In this way, the balance will fulfil an important evaluative and indicative function, serving as an integral conceptual framework to find out what investments to make and where they should be made. This report describes a survey, representing an initial step on the road to a balanced physical environment, charting further work along the way. It is also meant to stimulate a broad debate on how to audit this physical environment and what to study. The concept of the physical environment is defined as consisting of (stocks of) various objects in a certain (spatial) arrangement. These objects are evaluated from three perspectives: ecological, economic and social/psychological. The first two perspectives focus on long-term issues on sustainability. In the third perspective the central theme is the perception of the environment by humans themselves; here, we are concerned about short-term issues on the sub-national (local) level. The 1970-1995 draft balance also saw its first elaboration in this report.De leefomgevingsbalans is een door VROM voorgesteld toekomstig beleidsinstrument om gedane ingrepen in het fysieke milieu op hun integrale gevolgen voor de leefomgeving te beoordelen. De leefomgevingsbalans zou hiermee een belangrijke evaluerende en signalerende functie hebben: door beschouwing van alle relevante aspecten maakt de balans zichtbaar waar tekorten zijn of dreigen te ontstaan en waar extra inspanningen nodig zijn. Hiermee vormt de leefomgevingsbalans een integratief raamwerk dat richtinggevend kan zijn voor de aard en locatie van gewenste investeringen. Dit rapport is een verkenning van een mogelijk invulling van een dergelijke leefomgevingsbalans en dient uitsluitend als basis voor discussie. Het beschouwt de fysieke leefomgeving als een verzameling van (voorraden) van allerlei objecten in een bepaalde ruimtelijke configuratie. Deze objecten worden vanuit verschillende invalshoeken verschillend gewaardeerd. Hierbij is onderscheid gemaakt in een ecologisch, economisch en sociaal-psychologisch perspectief. De eerste twee perspectieven zijn vooral gericht op lange termijn-vraagstukken waarbij duurzaamheid voorop staat. Bij het laatste perspectief gaat om de individuele leefbaarheid van de burger, veelal handelend over korte termijn-vraagstukken op vooral lokaal niveau. Op deze wijze wordt het 'leefomgevingskapitaal' gepresenteerd als een drieluik van economische, ecologische en sociaal-psychologische waarden. In het rapport is ook een eerste uitwerking van dit concept voor de periode 1970-1995 gegeven