Exploring the potential of waste heat in sorbent mobile carbon capture: an energy feasibility study

La descarbonització del sector del transport és una demanda ambiental crítica per reduir les emissions de diòxid de carboni del sector del transport. Les possibles solucions inclouen vehicles elèctrics, el canvi a biocombustibles o la captura i el processament del diòxid de carboni. Tot i que els vehicles elèctrics de bateria redueixen les emissions per a viatges de curta distància, persisteixen obstacles importants per a distàncies més llargues, l'electrificació de vehicles pesants i aplicacions de llarg recorregut, i preocupacions creixents sobre les emissions de gasos d'efecte hivernacle. Al mateix temps, la descarbonització del transport presenta nous reptes degut al cost, la conveniència (xarxes de càrrega) i l'expansibilitat de la tecnologia actual. Això planteja un desafiament per als clients, la indústria de l'automòbil i els legisladors. Aquestes circumstàncies requereixen estratègies innovadores com la captura i l'emmagatzematge de carboni per a la xarxa de transport pesant. Aquest estudi investiga la possibilitat d'utilitzar calor residual dels gasos d'escapament dels motors dièsel en un sistema mòbil de captura de carboni basat en sorbents. Els motors dièsel generen quantitats substancials de calor residual perquè s’utilitzen àmpliament en moltes aplicacions industrials i de transport. Aquesta calor es desaprofita i es deixa anar a l’atmosfera, la qual cosa és una gran ineficiència. La sostenibilitat i l'eficiència energètica dels motors dièsel poden augmentar recollint i utilitzant aquesta calor residual. L’objectiu d’aquest estudi és avaluar la viabilitat d’aquesta estratègia, amb especial èmfasi en la calor residual que es pot utilitzar per al procés de captura de carboni. Combinant la captura de carboni i la recuperació de calor residual, els motors dièsel poden apropar-se a ser vehicles de zero emissions mentre deixen una empremta de carboni global menor. Hem realitzat una anàlisi exhaustiva de la viabilitat energètica per avaluar la integració de la recuperació de calor residual amb un sistema de captura de carboni basat en sorbents. L'estudi va incloure modelització termodinàmica, consideracions de disseny del sistema i avaluacions de rendiment en condicions operatives estacionàries. Es van examinar paràmetres crítics, com les temperatures dels gasos d'escapament i els cabals, per quantificar l’energia tèrmica disponible.Outgoin

Prevalence of virological failure amongst WHO- defined immunological failure HIV patients on first line of highly active antiretroviral therapy in a tertiary care hospital in Haryana, India

Background: In resource limited settings in India, monitoring of treatment in HIV patients taking highly active antiretroviral therapy is done by six monthly CD4 count instead of highly sensitive plasma viral load. Patients are subjected to viral load only when their CD4 count is low for the last 12 months. This protocol has a huge disadvantage as treatment failure is detected much later than it has actually occurred and switch over to second line therapy gets delayed by approximately one year.Methods: Plasma viral load (pVL) of 50 WHO defined immunological failure cases was done using RT-PCR to detect virological failure (VF).Results: Out of 50 WHO defined immunological failure cases, 16 percent had developed virological failure.Conclusions: Nearly one-sixth of WHO defined immunological failure (IF) cases had developed virological failure. These patients required second line highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) therapy but due to following of current treatment monitoring protocol, treatment got delayed by one year. Thus, amendment in national policy for monitoring ART is required to diagnose treatment failure early so that there is no delay in switching to second line ART and morbidity and mortality in these patients can be reduced.

QGRS Mapper: a web-based server for predicting G-quadruplexes in nucleotide sequences

The quadruplex structures formed by guanine-rich nucleic acid sequences have received significant attention recently because of growing evidence for their role in important biological processes and as therapeutic targets. G-quadruplex DNA has been suggested to regulate DNA replication and may control cellular proliferation. Sequences capable of forming G-quadruplexes in the RNA have been shown to play significant roles in regulation of polyadenylation and splicing events in mammalian transcripts. Whether quadruplex structure directly plays a role in regulating RNA processing requires investigation. Computational approaches to study G-quadruplexes allow detailed analysis of mammalian genomes. There are no known easily accessible user-friendly tools that can compute G-quadruplexes in the nucleotide sequences. We have developed a web-based server, QGRS Mapper, that predicts quadruplex forming G-rich sequences (QGRS) in nucleotide sequences. It is a user-friendly application that provides many options for defining and studying G-quadruplexes. It performs analysis of the user provided genomic sequences, e.g. promoter and telomeric regions, as well as RNA sequences. It is also useful for predicting G-quadruplex structures in oligonucleotides. The program provides options to search and retrieve desired gene/nucleotide sequence entries from NCBI databases for mapping G-quadruplexes in the context of RNA processing sites. This feature is very useful for investigating the functional relevance of G-quadruplex structure, in particular its role in regulating the gene expression by alternative processing. In addition to providing data on composition and locations of QGRS relative to the processing sites in the pre-mRNA sequence, QGRS Mapper features interactive graphic representation of the data. The user can also use the graphics module to visualize QGRS distribution patterns among all the alternative RNA products of a gene simultaneously on a single screen. QGRS Mapper can be accessed at

Seed coating with environmentally acceptable polymers as an alternative to fungicide treatment of corn and soybeans

In the United States alone, more than fifty-five million acres of crop land are planted annually with corn seed that has been treated with Captan® (Mercaptan, a powder fungicide). This means that more that 1,230,000 pounds of Captan® are applied to the soil each year

Diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging in the evaluation of pulmonary infections in immunocompromised patients

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnosing pulmonary infections in immunocompromised adults. Material and methods: Computed tomography (CT) and MRI chest were performed in 35 immuno-compromised patients suspected of pulmonary infection. The MRI sequences that were performed included axial and coronal T2 half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin-echo (HASTE), spectrally attenuated inversion recovery (SPAIR), true fast imaging with steady-state free precession (TRUFI), and three-dimensional fast low angle shot (3D FLASH) using breath-hold and respiratory triggered BLADE (proprietary name for periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction). The presence of nodules, consolidations, and ground-glass opacities was evaluated. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated for MRI using CT scan as a reference standard. Results: The sensitivity of MRI in nodule detection was 50% overall and 75% for nodules measuring more than 5 mm. Consolidation was detected with 100% sensitivity. Sensitivity and PPV for the detection of ground-glass opacities (GGOs) were 77.7% and 53.8%, respectively. T2 HASTE axial had the fewest image artefacts. Respiratory triggered MR pulse sequence did not add any significant diagnostic information as compared to the non-respiratory triggered MR pulse sequences. Conclusions: Sensitivity for detecting small nodules and GGOs on MR is poor; CT scan remains the imaging modality of choice for the evaluation of pulmonary infections in immunocompromised patients. However, MRI can be used in the follow-up imaging of these patients

QGRS-Conserve: a computational method for discovering evolutionarily conserved G-quadruplex motifs

BACKGROUND: Nucleic acids containing guanine tracts can form quadruplex structures via non-Watson-Crick base pairing. Formation of G-quadruplexes is associated with the regulation of important biological functions such as transcription, genetic instability, DNA repair, DNA replication, epigenetic mechanisms, regulation of translation, and alternative splicing. G-quadruplexes play important roles in human diseases and are being considered as targets for a variety of therapies. Identification of functional G-quadruplexes and the study of their overall distribution in genomes and transcriptomes is an important pursuit. Traditional computational methods map sequence motifs capable of forming G-quadruplexes but have difficulty in distinguishing motifs that occur by chance from ones which fold into G-quadruplexes. RESULTS: We present Quadruplex forming ‘G’-rich sequences (QGRS)-Conserve, a computational method for calculating motif conservation across exomes and supports filtering to provide researchers with more precise methods of studying G-quadruplex distribution patterns. Our method quantitatively evaluates conservation between quadruplexes found in homologous nucleotide sequences based on several motif structural characteristics. QGRS-Conserve also efficiently manages overlapping G-quadruplex sequences such that the resulting datasets can be analyzed effectively. CONCLUSIONS: We have applied QGRS-Conserve to identify a large number of G-quadruplex motifs in the human exome conserved across several mammalian and non-mammalian species. We have successfully identified multiple homologs of many previously published G-quadruplexes that play post-transcriptional regulatory roles in human genes. Preliminary large-scale analysis identified many homologous G-quadruplexes in the 5′- and 3′-untranslated regions of mammalian species. An expectedly smaller set of G-quadruplex motifs was found to be conserved across larger phylogenetic distances. QGRS-Conserve provides means to build datasets that can be filtered and categorized in a variety of biological dimensions for more targeted studies in order to better understand the roles that G-quadruplexes play