Comparative assessment of physiological and biochemical changes in the selected plant species growing under hydrocarbon stress

Hydrocarbons have become a serious environmental problem due to industrialization and extensive use of vehicles. Various plant species shows a range of stress responses and adaptations to survive in hydrocarbon stress. This study was conducted to investigate the comparative phytotoxicity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on plants growing under hydrocarbon stress on the germination and to evaluate the response on seedling growth. For the study, two crop plant species (Brassica juncea L. Czern., and Triticum aestivum L.) and two ornamental plant species (Tagetes erecta L. and Helianthus annuus L.) were taken. Pot experiments were conducted in triplicates of 10 days old seedlings treated with 5, 20, 50 & 100 mg kg-1 concentrations of hydrocarbons. After 20 days, biochemical analysis and antioxidant enzyme activity of these plants were studied. Polyphenol and proline increased with increasing concentration of hydrocarbons which were maximum in H. annuus with 0.909 mg g-1 polyphenol and 0.732 µmol g-1 proline at 100 mg kg-1. Increase in antioxidant enzymatic activities was observed with increasing concentration. H. annuus showed maximum activity at 100 ppm which was ascorbate peroxidase (20.37 Unit g-1 FW), peroxidase (0.212 Unit g-1 FW) and superoxide dismutase (2.13 Unit g-1 FW). HPLC analysis in plants and soil provided the concentration of hydrocarbons present in plants species after 20 days taken up from the treated soil. Plants cultivated in 100 mg kg-1 concentration were analysed and the lowest toxicity observed in H. annuus which was 3.013 mg kg-1 Naphthalene, 7.750 mg kg-1 Phenanthrene and 5.691 mg kg-1 Anthracene while highest toxicity was observed in Tagetes at 8.476 mg kg-1 Naphthalene, 0.398 mg kg-1 Phenanthrene and 0.416 mg kg-1 Anthracene. These results suggested that H. annuus can be adopted in phytoremediation of hydrocarbons soil

Living Within a Carbon Budget – The Agenda for Mitigation

human development, climate change

A study of scrub meningoencephalitis and keeping it as a common differential diagnosis

Background: Scrub typhus is caused by the organism Orientia tsutsugamushi, transmitted by trombiculid mites. Meningoencephalitis as a cause of mortality in cases of scrub typhus is becoming a common entity now. Aims and objectives were to study the incidence of meningoencephalitis in scrub typhus cases admitted to our hospital and stress the importance of keeping it as a common differential diagnosis.Methods: A descriptive observational study of 39 diagnosed cases of scrub typhus admitted to our hospital for 6 months duration (May 2018 to October 2018) was conducted. Data concerning the cases were recorded and analyzed using appropriate statistics.Results: Out of 39 cases admitted, 8 patients were diagnosed as having meningoencephalitis. Patients with meningoencephalitis had severe thrombocytopenia when compared to those without any central nervous system (CNS) symptoms. All patients responded well to doxycycline therapy with no mortality amongst cases under study.Conclusions: There have been numerous outbreaks of scrub typhus in our state of Rajasthan, especially in the Hadoti region. And in recent years, scrub typhus has been an important contributor to the newer class of emerging infections causing mortality in India. Meningoencephalitis although rare forms a major part of the complications of scrub typhus

Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier during dengue virus infection of mice

A breakdown of the blood-brain barrier occurred in mice inoculated intracerebrally (i.c.) or intraperitoneally (i.p.) with dengue virus type 2 (DEN2). This resulted in leakage of protein-bound Evans blue dye and 51Cr-labelled erythrocytes into the brain tissue. The leakage increased with time after infection and coincided with an increase of a DEN2-induced cytokine, the cytotoxic factor (CF), in the spleens of such mice. The titres of virus in the brain increased exponentially in i.c. inoculated mice but the virus was not detected in brains of mice given DEN2 by the i.p. route. Similar breakdown of the blood-brain barrier also occurred in mice inoculated intravenously with CF; the damage was dose-dependent and the vascular integrity was restored during the 3 h period after inoculation. Treatment of mice with antihistamine drugs, blocking H1 or H2 receptors, decreased the DEN2-induced protein leakage by up to 50% in i.c. inoculated mice and up to 92% in those inoculated i.p. Indomethacin, a prostaglandin synthetase inhibitor, had no effect. In i.c. inoculated mice protein leakage was inhibited by about 60% by treatment with CF-specific (CFA) or DEN2-specific antisera (DEN2A) whereas protection was complete with the combined treatment with both antisera. On the other hand, in i.p. inoculated mice the inhibition of protein leakage was 80 to 89% with CFA. These findings show a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier leading to cerebral oedema during DEN2 infection which is mediated via the release of histamine by a virus-induced cytokine

Crafting Conscious Employee Engagement through Wellbeing: A Key Differentiator to Long-Term Organizational Success within the Hospitality Industry

Discussions on pandemics that hit the human race have dominated the scientific research world, on the contrary, due to the developments in technology and globalisation the work environment has evolved into a complex space and for this reason, there is a wide research gap on how the workforce can get back to normal or cope with an ever-changing pandemic phenomenon. The objectives of the current paper are aligned to identify the impact of Covid-19 on different levels of the employees’ life, to analyse the effect on mental health and wellbeing, and to formulate a relationship between mindful employee engagement and its impact on organisational success. The current scenario requires the employees to continue working from home for the businesses to sustain themselves in the future. By reviewing 20 research articles, an understanding is developed of the remote-work model and its positive and negative impacts on employees as well as organisations. Using a semi-structured questionnaire to interview service industry professionals, data has been gathered. Using a semi-structured analysis the authors aim to illustrate the pandemic’s effects from the employees’ perspective. The researchers found three significant findings: loyalty to self-preservation, mindfulness to address mental health and improve performance and success of organisations during the pandemic depends on a purpose-driven culture

Reducing stranded assets through early action in the Indian power sector

Cost-effective achievement of the Paris Agreement's long-term goals requires the unanimous phase-out of coal power generation by mid-century. However, continued investments in coal power plants will make this transition difficult. India is one of the major countries with significant under construction and planned increase in coal power capacity. To ascertain the likelihood and consequences of the continued expansion of coal power for India's future mitigation options, we use harmonised scenario results from national and global models along with projections from various government reports. Both these approaches estimate that coal capacity is expected to increase until 2030, along with rapid developments in wind and solar power. However, coal capacity stranding of the order of 133–237 GW needs to occur after 2030 if India were to pursue an ambitious climate policy in line with a well-below 2 °C target. Earlier policy strengthening starting after 2020 can reduce stranded assets (14–159 GW) but brings with it political economy and renewable expansion challenges. We conclude that a policy limiting coal plants to those under construction combined with higher solar targets could be politically feasible, prevent significant stranded capacity, and allow higher mitigation ambition in the future

A new scenario framework for climate change research: background, process, and future directions

The scientific community is developing new global, regional, and sectoral scenarios to facilitate interdisciplinary research and assessment to explore the range of possible future climates and related physical changes that could pose risks to human and natural systems; how these changes could interact with social, economic, and environmental development pathways; the degree to which mitigation and adaptation policies can avoid and reduce risks; the costs and benefits of various policy mixes; residual impacts under alternative pathways; and the relationship of future climate change and adaptation and mitigation policy responses with sustainable development. This paper provides the background to and process of developing the conceptual framework for these scenarios, as described in the three subsequent papers in this Special Issue (Van Vuuren et al.; O’Neill et al.; Kriegler et al.). The paper also discusses research needs to further develop and apply this framework. A key goal of the current framework design and its future development is to facilitate the collaboration of climate change researchers from a broad range of perspectives and disciplines to develop policy- and decision-relevant scenarios and explore the challenges and opportunities human and natural systems could face with additional climate change

Reducing stranded assets through early action in the Indian power sector

n/

Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models

Integrated assessment models are extensively used in the analysis of climate change mitigation and are informing national decision makers as well as contribute to international scientific assessments. This paper conducts a comprehensive review of techno-economic assumptions in the electricity sector among fifteen different global and national integrated assessment models. Particular focus is given to six major economies in the world: Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan and the US. The comparison reveals that techno-economic characteristics are quite different across integrated assessment models, both for the base year and future years. It is, however, important to recognize that techno-economic assessments from the literature exhibit an equally large range of parameters as the integrated assessment models reviewed. Beyond numerical differences, the representation of technologies also differs among models, which needs to be taken into account when comparing numerical parameters. While desirable, it seems difficult to fully harmonize techno-economic parameters across a broader range of models due to structural differences in the representation of technology. Therefore, making techno-economic parameters available in the future, together with of the technology representation as well as the exact definitions of the parameters should become the standard approach as it allows an open discussion of appropriate assumptions. © 2019 The Author