Vertaileva ympäristöarviointi orgaanisista ja mineraalilannoitteista – Tapaustutkimus teollisuuden jätevirroista tuotetusta BioA-lannoitteesta

Mineral fertilizers are a powerful tool in guaranteeing world’s food supply but their production and use also cause a significant environmental burden. A possible substitute for mineral fertilizers are organic fertilizers, the production of which does not consume virgin, non-renewable raw materials. This master’s thesis studies an organic fertilizer which is produced by reusing industrial waste originating from a factory site of which the main activity is pulp and paper production. This fertilizer is named as the BioA fertilizer. The study had two objectives. The first objective was to determine the composition of the BioA fertilizer. The second objective was to conduct an environmental assessment which compares the environmental impacts that arise during the life cycle of the two research targets: the BioA fertilizer and the reference mineral fertilizer. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was selected for the assessment method and the analyzed environmental impacts were calculated in proportion to the quantity of fertilizer required to obtain a crop yield of 3000 kg of barley per hectare. The NPK rating for the BioA fertilizer was calculated to be 5-1-1, which is quite similar compared to the organic fertilizers on the Finnish market. In addition, the composition of the fertilizer did not exceed the maximum permitted limit for heavy metals in cadmium. Thus, according to the design criteria used in the present study, the BioA fertilizer is a technically feasible product. The environmental assessment studied the environmental impacts of the following five modules: 1) raw material consumption, 2) energy consumption, 3) emission generation, 4) waste generation, and 5) usage and nutrient release. In the present study, no single value representing the total environmental impact balance could be provided, rather environmental impacts were compared according to the above modules. It can be stated that from an environmental perspective, in terms of nitrogen content, energy consumption and required quantity, the reference mineral fertilizer appeared to be superior. On the other hand, the BioA fertilizer proved to be superior in raw material consumption, limiting of waste generation and probably in emission generation.Maailman ruokatuotanto pohjautuu mineraali- eli väkilannoitteiden tehokkaaseen käyttöön. Kasvintuotannon tehostamisen lisäksi mineraalilannoitteet aiheuttavat kuitenkin myös ympäristöhaittoja. Vaihtoehtona mineraalilannoitteille ovat orgaaniset lannoitteet. Tämä diplomityö tarkastelee tapaustutkimuksena orgaanisen BioA-lannoitteen tuottamista paperi- ja selluteollisuuden jätevirroista. Tämän työn tavoitteet oli jaettu kahteen osaan. Ensimmäisenä tavoitteena oli määrittää BioA-lannoitteen koostumus ja toisena tavoitteena oli suorittaa vertaileva ympäristöarviointi elinkaaren aikaisista ympäristövaikutuksista BioA-lannoitteen ja vertailuun valitun mineraalilannoitteen välillä. Ympäristöarviointimenetelmänä käytettiin elinkaariarviointia (eng. Life Cycle Assessment, LCA). Analysoidut ympäristövaikutukset suhteutettiin lannoitekohtaiseen satovasteeseen, joka kuvaa tarvittavaa lannoitteen määrää, jotta pellon tuotto on 3000 kg ohraa hehtaarilta. BioA-lannoitteen NPK-arvoksi saatiin 5-1-1, joka on samantasoinen verrattuna Suomessa markkinoilla oleviin orgaanisiin lannoitteisiin. BioA-lannoitteen koostumus ei myös ylittänyt kadmiumin ylintä sallittua pitoisuutta. Täten BioA-lannoite on teknisesti toteuttamiskelpoinen tuote tässä diplomityössä käytettyjen tuotekoostumuksen suunnittelukriteereiden mukaan. Ympäristöarviointi keskittyi viiden eri moduulin ympäristövaikutusten arviointiin. Moduulit olivat 1) raaka-aineen kulutus, 2) energian kulutus, 3) päästöt, 4) jätteiden synty ja 5) käyttö ja ravinteiden vapautuminen. Tämän tutkimuksen perusteella ei pystytty arvioimaan lannoitteiden kokonaisympäristövaikutusta, vaan ympäristövaikutuksia vertailtiin moduulikohtaisesti. Tulosten perusteella voidaan todeta, että ympäristön kannalta vertailuun valitun mineraalilannoitteen typpipitoisuus, energian kulutus ja tarvittava määrä olivat parempia kuin BioA-lannoitteen vastaavat arvot. Toisaalta BioA-lannoite oli ympäristön kannalta parempi raaka-aineen kulutuksessa ja jätteiden synnyssä sekä todennäköisesti myös päästöjen suhteen

Kaupunkien uusi rooli innovaatioiden edistämisessä - INKA-ohjelman loppuarviointi

Innovatiiviset kaupungit eli INKA-ohjelma käynnistyi vuonna 2014 ja sen tavoitteena on ollut alueellisten innovaatiokeskittymien vahvistaminen. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö käynnisti keväällä 2017 INKA-ohjelman loppuarvioinnin, jonka on toteuttanut Gaia Consulting Oy maalis-elokuussa 2017. Koska INKA-ohjelma loppui jo ennen suunniteltua päättymisaikaansa, arviointi ei ole perin-teinen ohjelman tulosten ja vaikuttavuuden arviointi, vaan ennemmin tulevaisuuden innovaatiopolitiikkaa ja sen kehittämistä palveleva selvitys ohjelman tavoitteiden relevanssista sekä ohjelmassa käytetyistä parhaista ja uusista hyvistä käytännöistä ja toimintamalleist

A crowd of BashTheBug volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates

Tuberculosis is a respiratory disease that is treatable with antibiotics. An increasing prevalence of resistance means that to ensure a good treatment outcome it is desirable to test the susceptibility of each infection to different antibiotics. Conventionally, this is done by culturing a clinical sample and then exposing aliquots to a panel of antibiotics, each being present at a pre-determined concentration, thereby determining if the sample isresistant or susceptible to each sample. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of a drug is the lowestconcentration that inhibits growth and is a more useful quantity but requires each sample to be tested at a range ofconcentrations for each drug. Using 96-well broth micro dilution plates with each well containing a lyophilised pre-determined amount of an antibiotic is a convenient and cost-effective way to measure the MICs of several drugs at once for a clinical sample. Although accurate, this is still an expensive and slow process that requires highly-skilled and experienced laboratory scientists. Here we show that, through the BashTheBug project hosted on the Zooniverse citizen science platform, a crowd of volunteers can reproducibly and accurately determine the MICs for 13 drugs and that simply taking the median or mode of 11-17 independent classifications is sufficient. There is therefore a potential role for crowds to support (but not supplant) the role of experts in antibiotic susceptibility testing

Antimicrobial resistance determinants are associated with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia and adaptation to the healthcare environment: a bacterial genome-wide association study

Staphylococcus aureus is a major bacterial pathogen in humans, and a dominant cause of severe bloodstream infections. Globally, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in S. aureus remains challenging. While human risk factors for infection have been defined, contradictory evidence exists for the role of bacterial genomic variation in S. aureus disease. To investigate the contribution of bacterial lineage and genomic variation to the development of bloodstream infection, we undertook a genome-wide association study comparing bacteria from 1017 individuals with bacteraemia to 984 adults with asymptomatic S. aureus nasal carriage. Within 984 carriage isolates, we also compared healthcare-associated (HA) carriage with community-associated (CA) carriage. All major global lineages were represented in both bacteraemia and carriage, with no evidence for different infection rates. However, kmers tagging trimethoprim resistance-conferring mutation F99Y in dfrB were significantly associated with bacteraemia-vs-carriage (P=10-8.9-10-9.3). Pooling variation within genes, bacteraemia-vs-carriage was associated with the presence of mecA (HMP=10-5.3) as well as the presence of SCCmec (HMP=10-4.4). Among S. aureus carriers, no lineages were associated with HA-vs-CA carriage. However, we found a novel signal of HA-vs-CA carriage in the foldase protein prsA, where kmers representing conserved sequence allele were associated with CA carriage (P=10-7.1-10-19.4), while in gyrA, a ciprofloxacin resistance-conferring mutation, L84S, was associated with HA carriage (P=10-7.2). In an extensive study of S. aureus bacteraemia and nasal carriage in the UK, we found strong evidence that all S. aureus lineages are equally capable of causing bloodstream infection, and of being carried in the healthcare environment. Genomic variation in the foldase protein prsA is a novel genomic marker of healthcare origin in S. aureus but was not associated with bacteraemia. AMR determinants were associated with both bacteraemia and healthcare-associated carriage, suggesting that AMR increases the propensity not only to survive in healthcare environments, but also to cause invasive disease

Biotalous ja cleantech Suomessa – strategioiden arviointi ja toimenpidesuositukset

Suomella on monipuolista cleantechiin ja biotalouteen liittyvää osaamista ja valmius ratkaista kestävään hyvinvointiin liittyviä haasteita sekä Suomessa että globaalisti. Biotalous ja cleantech nähdään Suomessa strategisesti tärkeinä painopistealueina. Kansallinen biotalousstrategia ja hallituksen cleantechstrategia julkaistiin toukokuussa 2014. Strategioiden päivitystä tukemaan toteutettiin valtioneuvoston päätöksentekoa tukevan selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan (VN TEAS) hanke Biotalous ja puhtaat ratkaisut kestävän kasvun perustana (CLEANBIO). Sen tavoitteena oli tunnistaa strategioiden toimenpiteillä tähän mennessä saavutettu kehitys ja tarkastella sitä, ovatko strategioiden toimenpiteet oikein kohdistettuja vastaten biotalous- ja cleantech-markkinoiden jatkuvasti muuttuvan kentän tarpeisiin sekä tuottaa kehitysehdotuksia toimenpiteisiin. Vaikka tilastollisesti strategioiden onnistumista ei voi arvioida, strategioita on yleisesti ottaen pidetty hyvinä. Strategiaprosesseja tulisi kuitenkin uudistaa ja tavoitteiden mitattavuus varmistaa. Lisäksi tulisi entistä enemmän tukea systeemistä muutosta ja yritysten kansainvälistymistä, hyödyntää verkostoja sekä turvata pitkän aikavälin toimintaedellytykset. Liite A Haastattelut ja sidosryhmätilaisuus, osallistujat ja keskeiset opit Liite B Cleantechin ja biotalouden toteutunut kehitys vuoteen 2013 asti Ympäristöliiketoimintaaineiston perusteella Liite C Skenaariotarkastelut metsäbiomassaan perustuvan biotalouden kehityksestä Suomessa Liite D Yritysesimerkkien vaikutuspolu

The Protein Phosphatase 7 Regulates Phytochrome Signaling in Arabidopsis

The psi2 mutant of Arabidopsis displays amplification of the responses controlled by the red/far red light photoreceptors phytochrome A (phyA) and phytochrome B (phyB) but no apparent defect in blue light perception. We found that loss-of-function alleles of the protein phosphatase 7 (AtPP7) are responsible for the light hypersensitivity in psi2 demonstrating that AtPP7 controls the levels of phytochrome signaling. Plants expressing reduced levels of AtPP7 mRNA display reduced blue-light induced cryptochrome signaling but no noticeable deficiency in phytochrome signaling. Our genetic analysis suggests that phytochrome signaling is enhanced in the AtPP7 loss of function alleles, including in blue light, which masks the reduced cryptochrome signaling. AtPP7 has been found to interact both in yeast and in planta assays with nucleotide-diphosphate kinase 2 (NDPK2), a positive regulator of phytochrome signals. Analysis of ndpk2-psi2 double mutants suggests that NDPK2 plays a critical role in the AtPP7 regulation of the phytochrome pathway and identifies NDPK2 as an upstream element involved in the modulation of the salicylic acid (SA)-dependent defense pathway by light. Thus, cryptochrome- and phytochrome-specific light signals synchronously control their relative contribution to the regulation of plant development. Interestingly, PP7 and NDPK are also components of animal light signaling systems

Association of breast cancer risk in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers with genetic variants showing differential allelic expression:Identification of a modifier of breast cancer risk at locus 11q22.3

Cis-acting regulatory SNPs resulting in differential allelic expression (DAE) may, in part, explain the underlying phenotypic variation associated with many complex diseases. To investigate whether common variants associated with DAE were involved in breast cancer susceptibility among BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, a list of 175 genes was developed based of their involvement in cancer-related pathways.Using data from a genome-wide map of SNPs associated with allelic expression, we assessed the association of similar to 320 SNPs located in the vicinity of these genes with breast and ovarian cancer risks in 15,252 BRCA1 and 8211 BRCA2 mutation carriers ascertained from 54 studies participating in the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2.We identified a region on 11q22.3 that is significantly associated with breast cancer risk in BRCA1 mutation carriers (most significant SNP rs228595 p = 7 x 10(-6)). This association was absent in BRCA2 carriers (p = 0.57). The 11q22.3 region notably encompasses genes such as ACAT1, NPAT, and ATM. Expression quantitative trait loci associations were observed in both normal breast and tumors across this region, namely for ACAT1, ATM, and other genes. In silico analysis revealed some overlap between top risk-associated SNPs and relevant biological features in mammary cell data, which suggests potential functional significance.We identified 11q22.3 as a new modifier locus in BRCA1 carriers. Replication in larger studies using estrogen receptor (ER)-negative or triple-negative (i.e., ER-, progesterone receptor-, and HER2-negative) cases could therefore be helpful to confirm the association of this locus with breast cancer risk.</p

Genome-wide Analyses Identify KIF5A as a Novel ALS Gene

To identify novel genes associated with ALS, we undertook two lines of investigation. We carried out a genome-wide association study comparing 20,806 ALS cases and 59,804 controls. Independently, we performed a rare variant burden analysis comparing 1,138 index familial ALS cases and 19,494 controls. Through both approaches, we identified kinesin family member 5A (KIF5A) as a novel gene associated with ALS. Interestingly, mutations predominantly in the N-terminal motor domain of KIF5A are causative for two neurodegenerative diseases: hereditary spastic paraplegia (SPG10) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 (CMT2). In contrast, ALS-associated mutations are primarily located at the C-terminal cargo-binding tail domain and patients harboring loss-of-function mutations displayed an extended survival relative to typical ALS cases. Taken together, these results broaden the phenotype spectrum resulting from mutations in KIF5A and strengthen the role of cytoskeletal defects in the pathogenesis of ALS.Peer reviewe

Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older. Methods Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health. Findings Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2.2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1.5-3.0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6.8% (5.8-8.0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15-49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3.8% (95% UI 3.2-4-3) of female deaths and 12.2% (10.8-13-6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15-49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2.3% (95% UI 2.0-2.6) and male attributable DALYs were 8.9% (7.8-9.9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1.4% [95% UI 1. 0-1. 7] of total deaths), road injuries (1.2% [0.7-1.9]), and self-harm (1.1% [0.6-1.5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27.1% (95% UI 21.2-33.3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18.9% (15.3-22.6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0.0-0.8) standard drinks per week. Interpretation Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.Peer reviewe

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure