Application of processed organic municipal solid waste on agricultural land - a scenario analysis

Source separation, composting and anaerobic digestion, with associated land application, are increasingly being considered as alternative waste management strategies to landfilling and incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW). Environmental life cycle assessments are a useful tool in political decision-making about waste management strategies. However, due to the diversity of processed organic MSW and the situations in which it can be applied, the environmental impacts of land application are very hard to determine by experimental means. In the current study, we used the agroecosystem model Daisy to simulate a range of different scenarios representing different geographical areas, farm and soil types under Danish conditions and legislation. Generally, the application of processed organic MSW resulted in increased emissions compared with the corresponding standard scenarios, but with large differences between scenarios. Emission coefficients for nitrogen leaching to the groundwater ranged from 0.03 to 0.87, while those for nitrogen lost to surface waters through tile drains ranged from 0 to 0.30. Emission coefficients for N2O formation ranged from 0.013 to 0.022 and for ammonia volatilization from 0.016 to 0.11. These estimates are within reasonable range of observed values under similar conditions. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis showed that the estimates were not very sensitive to the mineralization dynamics of the processed organic MSW. The results show that agroecosystem models can be powerful tools to estimate the environmental impacts of land application of processed MSW under different conditions. Despite this, agroecosystem models have only been used to a very limited degree for this purpose

Strong labour market inequality of opportunities at the workplace for supporting a long and healthy work-life:The SeniorWorkingLife study

Most European countries are gradually increasing the state pension age, but this may run counter to the capabilities and wishes of older workers. The objective of this study is to identify opportunities in the workplace for supporting a prolonged working life in different groups in the labour market. A representative sample of 11,200 employed workers ≥ 50 years responded to 15 questions in random order about opportunities at their workplace for supporting a prolonged working life. Respondents were stratified based on the Danish version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). Using frequency and logistic regression procedures combined with model-assisted weights based on national registers, results showed that the most common opportunities at the workplace were possibilities for more vacation, reduction of working hours, flexible working hours, access to treatment, further education and physical exercise. However, ISCO groups 5–9 (mainly physical work and shorter education) had in general poorer access to these opportunities than ISCO groups 1–4 (mainly seated work and longer education). Women had poorer access than men, and workers with reduced work ability had poorer access than those with full work ability. Thus, in contrast with actual needs, opportunities at the workplace were lower in occupations characterized by physical work and shorter education, among women and among workers with reduced work ability. This inequality poses a threat to prolonging working life in vulnerable groups in the labour market

N-terminal and core-domain random mutations in human topoisomerase II α conferring bisdioxopiperazine resistance

AbstractRandom mutagenesis of human topoisomerase II α cDNA followed by functional expression in yeast cells lacking endogenous topoisomerase II activity in the presence of ICRF-187, identified five functional mutations conferring cellular bisdioxopiperazine resistance. The mutations L169F, G551S, P592L, D645N, and T996L confer >37, 37, 18, 14, and 19 fold resistance towards ICRF-187 in a 24 h clonogenic assay, respectively. Purified recombinant L169F protein is highly resistant towards catalytic inhibition by ICRF-187 in vitro while G551S, D645N, and T996L proteins are not. This demonstrates that cellular bisdioxopiperazine resistance can result from at least two classes of mutations in topoisomerase II; one class renders the protein non-responsive to bisdioxopiperazine compounds, while an other class does not appear to affect the catalytic sensitivity towards these drugs. In addition, our results indicate that different protein domains are involved in mediating the effect of bisdioxopiperazine compounds

Characterisation of cytotoxicity and DNA damage induced by the topoisomerase II-directed bisdioxopiperazine anti-cancer agent ICRF-187 (dexrazoxane) in yeast and mammalian cells

BACKGROUND: Bisdioxopiperazine anti-cancer agents are inhibitors of eukaryotic DNA topoisomerase II, sequestering this protein as a non-covalent protein clamp on DNA. It has been suggested that such complexes on DNA represents a novel form of DNA damage to cells. In this report, we characterise the cytotoxicity and DNA damage induced by the bisdioxopiperazine ICRF-187 by a combination of genetic and molecular approaches. In addition, the well-established topoisomerase II poison m-AMSA is used for comparison. RESULTS: By utilizing a panel of Saccharomyces cerevisiae single-gene deletion strains, homologous recombination was identified as the most important DNA repair pathway determining the sensitivity towards ICRF-187. However, sensitivity towards m-AMSA depended much more on this pathway. In contrast, disrupting the post replication repair pathway only affected sensitivity towards m-AMSA. Homologous recombination (HR) defective irs1SF chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells showed increased sensitivity towards ICRF-187, while their sensitivity towards m-AMSA was increased even more. Furthermore, complementation of the XRCC3 deficiency in irs1SF cells fully abrogated hypersensitivity towards both drugs. DNA-PK(cs )deficient V3-3 CHO cells having reduced levels of non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) showed slightly increased sensitivity to both drugs. While exposure of human small cell lung cancer (SCLC) OC-NYH cells to m-AMSA strongly induced γH2AX, exposure to ICRF-187 resulted in much less induction, showing that ICRF-187 generates fewer DNA double strand breaks than m-AMSA. Accordingly, when yeast cells were exposed to equitoxic concentrations of ICRF-187 and m-AMSA, the expression of DNA damage-inducible genes showed higher levels of induction after exposure to m-AMSA as compared to ICRF-187. Most importantly, ICRF-187 stimulated homologous recombination in SPD8 hamster lung fibroblast cells to lower levels than m-AMSA at all cytotoxicity levels tested, showing that the mechanism of action of bisdioxopiperazines differs from that of classical topoisomerase II poisons in mammalian cells. CONCLUSION: Our results point to important differences in the mechanism of cytotoxicity induced by bisdioxopiperazines and topoisomerase II poisons, and suggest that bisdioxopiperazines kill cells by a combination of DNA break-related and DNA break-unrelated mechanisms

Mg–Ti nanoparticles with superior kinetics for hydrogen storage

open5siAcknowledgements The assistance of F. Corticelli and V. Morandi (IMM-CNR, Bologna) during FE-SEM observations is gratefully acknowledged. Part of this work was supported by the COST Action MP1103 “Nanostructured materials for solid-state hydrogen storage”. We are grateful to the beamline I711 at MAXlab, Lund, Sweden for the provision of beamtime.Mg nanoparticles (NPs) with addition of Ti catalysts were synthesised by inert gas condensation and in situ hydrogenation at 150 °C. The NPs size and composition were systematically investigated by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (PXD), while time resolved in situ synchrotron radiation-PXD was used to monitor the mechanism for hydrogen uptake and release at 280 °C. The Mg–Ti NPs reveal activation energies of 68 kJ mol−1 for absorption and 78 kJ mol−1 for desorption by isothermal kinetics analysis, similar to the lowest values reported in the literature for MgH2 using Nb2O5 as a catalyst. Hence, hydrogen desorption (pdes = 8 mbar) and absorption (pabs = 260 mbar) is achieved at 200 °C in ∼2000 s, while keeping 5.3 wt% storage capacity. Thermodynamic data extracted from van ’t Hoff plots reveal unchanged values compared to bulk MgH2. Therefore, the improved hydrogen storage performances are assigned to the enhanced kinetics only.openCalizzi, Marco; Chericoni, Domizia; Jepsen, Lars H.; Jensen, Torben R.; Pasquini, LucaCalizzi, Marco; Chericoni, Domizia; Jepsen, Lars H.; Jensen, Torben R.; Pasquini, Luc

A recursive kinematic random forest and alpha beta filter classifier for 2D radar tracks

In this work, we show that by using a recursive random forest together with an alpha beta filter classifier it is possible to classify radar tracks from the tracks’ kinematic data. The kinematic data is from a 2D scanning radar without Doppler or height information. We use random forest as this classifier implicit handles the uncertainty in the position measurements. As stationary targets can have an apparently high speed because of the measurement uncertainty, we use an alpha beta filter classifier to classify stationary targets from moving targets. We show an overall classification rate from simulated data at 82.6 % and from real world data 79.7 %. Additional to the confusion matrix we also show recordings of real world data

Human small cell lung cancer NYH cells resistant to the bisdioxopiperazine ICRF-187 exhibit a functional dominant Tyr165Ser mutation in the Walker A ATP binding site of topoisomerase IIα

AbstractBisdioxopiperazine anti-cancer agents are catalytic inhibitors of topoisomerase II which by unknown means lock the enzyme in a closed clamp form and inhibit its ATPase activity. In order to demarcate a putative pharmacophore, we here describe a novel Tyr165Ser mutation in the enzyme’s Walker A ATP binding site leading to specific bisdioxopiperazine resistance when transformed into a temperature-conditional yeast system. The Tyr165Ser mutation differed from a previously described Arg162Gln by being heterozygous and by purified Tyr165Ser enzyme being drug-resistant in a kinetoplast DNA decatenation enzymatic assay. This suggested dominant nature of Tyr165Ser was supported by co-transformation studies in yeast of plasmids carrying wild type and mutant genes. These results enable a model of the bisdioxopiperazine pharmacophore using the proposed asymmetric ATP hydrolysis of the enzyme

Determination of PCR efficiency in chelex-100 purified clinical samples and comparison of real-time quantitative PCR and conventional PCR for detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae

BACKGROUND: Chlamydia pneumoniae infection has been detected by serological methods, but PCR is gaining more interest. A number of different PCR assays have been developed and some are used in combination with serology for diagnosis. Real-time PCR could be an attractive new PCR method; therefore it must be evaluated and compared to conventional PCR methods. RESULTS: We compared the performance of a newly developed real-time PCR with a conventional PCR method for detection of C. pneumoniae. The PCR methods were tested on reference samples containing C. pneumoniae DNA and on 136 nasopharyngeal samples from patients with a chronic cough. We found the same detection limit for the two methods and that clinical performance was equal for the real-time PCR and for the conventional PCR method, although only three samples tested positive. To investigate whether the low prevalence of C. pneumoniae among patients with a chronic cough was caused by suboptimal PCR efficiency in the samples, PCR efficiency was determined based on the real-time PCR. Seventeen of twenty randomly selected clinical samples had a similar PCR efficiency to samples containing pure genomic C. pneumoniae DNA. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that the performance of real-time PCR is comparable to that of conventional PCR, but that needs to be confirmed further. Real-time PCR can be used to investigate the PCR efficiency which gives a rough estimate of how well the real-time PCR assay works in a specific sample type. Suboptimal PCR efficiency of PCR is not a likely explanation for the low positivity rate of C. pneumoniae in patients with a chronic cough

Body mass index in young men and risk of inflammatory bowel disease through adult life: A population-based Danish cohort study

Abstract Body mass index (BMI) is associated with increased future risk of inflammatory bowel disease(IBD) particularly Crohn’s disease(CD), where associations with high and low BMI have been observed. Most studies are based on adult women. We aimed to explore the impact of BMI in men entering adult life on their long-term risk of developing IBD. A total of 377,957 men born during 1939–1959, with BMI measured at draft boards at mean age 19, were followed from 1977, or time of examination, to end of 2015. Risk of IBD was assessed using Cox regression. During 13 million person-years of follow-up, 1,523 developed CD and 3,323 UC. Using normal weight as reference, for CD the following HRs were observed: BMI < 18.5, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.12–1.62, BMI 25–29.9; 0.83; 95% CI, 0.68–1.02. and BMI > 30 1.20; 95% CI, 0.75–1.90). The increased risk of CD in underweight was maintained up until age 60 not explained by known effects of smoking. For UC, minor inverse associations were observed. Restricted cubic splines revealed a U-shape association between BMI and CD, but not UC. Low BMI of men entering adult life is associated with an increased incidence of CD and UC up to 40 years later

Geostatistical inference using crosshole ground-penetrating radar

High-resolution tomographic images obtained from crosshole geophysical measurements have the potential to provide valuable information about the geostatistical properties of unsaturated-zone hydrologic-state va riables such as moisture content. Under drained or quasi-steady-state conditions, the moisture content will reflect the variation of the physical properties of the subsurface, which determine the flow patterns in the unsaturated zone. Deterministic least-squares inversion of crosshole groundpenetrating-radar GPR traveltimes result in smooth, minimumvariance estimates of the subsurface radar wave velocity structure, which may diminish the utility of these images for geostatistical inference. We have used a linearized stochastic inversion technique to infer the geostatistical properties of the subsurface radar wave velocity distribution using crosshole GPR traveltimes directly. Expanding on a previous study, we have determined that it is possible to obtain estimates of global variance and mean velocity values of the subsurface as well as the correlation lengths describing the subsurface velocity structures. Accurate estimation of the global variance is crucial if stochastic realizations of the subsurface are used to evaluate the uncertainty of the inversion estimate. We have explored the full potential of the geostatistical inference method using several synthetic models of varying correlation structures and have tested the influence of different assumptions concerning the choice of covariance function and data noise level. In addition, we have tested the methodology on traveltime data collected at a field site in Denmark. There, inferred correlation structures indicate that structural differences exist between two areas located approximately 10 m apart, an observation confirmed by a GPR reflection profile. Furthermore, the inferred values of the subsurface global variance and the mean velocity have been corroborated with moisturecontent measurements, obtained gravimetrically from samples collected at the field site