New nanomaterial and process for the production of biofuel from metal hyper accumulator water hyacinth

Three different studies were performed for the conversion of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) plant into biofuel. In the first study, water hyacinth was saccharified with diluted sulfuric acid (1% v/v at 110°C for one hour), fermented by yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). The results showed the formation of 55.20% ethanol and 41.66% acetic acid. In another experiment, water hyacinth was gasified by using Ni and Co nano catalysts at 50 - 400°C and atmospheric pressure. In catalytic gasification, CH4 (2.41 - 6.67%), C2H4 (19.74 - 45.52%), C3H4 (21.04 - 45.52%), CH3OH (1.43 - 24.67%), and C3H8 / CH3CHO (0.33 -26.09%) products were obtained. In this study, anatase form of titanium dioxide photocatalyst was used. The reaction was performed at room temperature which gives methane, methanol and ethanol.This study also reports an interesting finding that metal contaminated water hyacinth could be used for not only the production of biofuel but also hydrocarbons

Phytoremediation technologies for Ni++ by water hyacinth

Phytoremediation of metal contaminated soil and water by Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) is promising. The study was conducted to compare the phytoremoval of Ni++ from soil and wastewater. For the measurement of phytoremoval from soil, E. crassipes was used in a pot experiment. Results showed the removal of (Ni) 24.23 μg/g dry weight of plant and large level calculations show removal of 3449.76 kg/ha of soil, corresponding to 25 μg/g of the added Ni++. In the second experiment, Ni++ contaminated Hoagland’s solution was used for the hydroponic growth of water hyacinth. The result of hydroponic experiment showed the phytoremoval of Ni++ from Ni++ contaminated wastewater; maximum removal was 1.954 μg/g of dry weight. In third experiment, ash of water hyacinth was used for the adsorption and desorption of Ni++. The adsorption capacity was 1.978 μg/g of ash. For the extraction(desorption) of Ni++, 3 M HNO3 was used. Desorption capacity was 3.71 μg/g of ash. The results of comparative study show order of nickel phytoremediation from soil to be greater than that from water by adsorption which was greater than that from water by hydroponic study. For phytoremoval of Ni++ from soil and water, water hyacinth plant and its ash showed excellence. The desorbed Ni++ can be used in the industries e.g. in Ni plating.Keywords: Nickel, phytoremediation, soil, waste water, water hyacinth, biosorptio

The spectrum of uncertainty in flood damage assessment

The future of the world is becoming more uncertain owing to climate change. The unfolding impacts of climate change are affecting human societies and natural ecosystems. Projections of climate change impacts are associated with a cascade of uncertainties including greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, climate models, and associated processes. Climate models are essential for predicting flow and flood peaks, neces-sitating proper means of quantification and re-use to help refine the predictions made. This study presents an innovative new framework to quantify flood damage assessment as the climate changes. To integrate uncertainty in modelling catchment behaviour, the Quantile Flow Deviation (QFD) metric was used to attribute different sources of uncertainty, including those from variations in climate from point measurements and from extrapolation to flood peaks from the limited observed flows that are available. The square root of error variance (SREV) calculated from global climate model (GCM) precipitation outputs was used to quantify climate change uncertainty, thereby enabling the estimation of the uncertainty in modelled streamflow to allow the extent of change in flood damage to be assessed. Using data from the Leaf River catchment in the USA, this study presents the increase in flood damage uncertainty resulting from explicit consideration of uncertainty as well as the change in the climate as a function of global temperature rise

Effect of tannery effluents on seed germination and growth of two sunflower cultivars

The wastewater of a tannery in Multan, Pakistan, was alkaline with high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) values along with much higher concentrations of total settle able salts and suspended solids, sodium adsorption ratio and high amount of sodium having the water quality class C3S1. Effluent was examined for its chemical constituents and the effect of its various dilutions was examined in greenhouse on two newly recommended sunflower cultivars (FH-330 and FH- 245) during their whole growth period. Percentage of germination, chlorophyll, carbohydrates and protein contents of both the sunflower cultivars showed significant (p = 0.05) decreasing trend with increasing effluent concentrations. Vegetative growth parameters like plant height and number of leaves per plant were significantly (p = 0.05) reduced with the increasing levels of effluents. Rate of leaf senescence of both cultivars was higher under higher effluent concentrations. Yield of sunflower crop in both cultivars was significantly (p = 0.05) reduced due to effluent concentrations. Seeds per capitulum were decreased to 49%, seeds weight per plant to 61 - 66% and 100-seed weight to 49 - 59%. The appearance of pale yellowish color of the affected plants was due to reduction in photosynthetic material under higher effluent concentration. Full strength effluent concentration caused the reduction in biomass accumulation and reproductive growth of sunflower cultivars. The results revealed that cultivar FH-330 was relatively resistant to varying effluent concentrations as compared to the cultivar FH- 245. However, the tannery effluents due to the presence of chemicals are not suitable for inclusion in irrigation system.Key words: Tannery effluents, sunflower, seed germination, growth, adverse effect, reduced yield

Acute abdominal pain presenting as a rare appendiceal duplication: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Appendiceal duplication is a rare anomaly that can manifest as right lower quadrant pain. There are several variations described for this condition. We recommend aggressive operative management should this anatomical variation present in the presence of acute appendicitis.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 15-year-old African American girl who presented to our hospital with right lower quadrant pain and was subsequently found to have appendiceal duplication.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There are two categorical systems that have described and stratified appendiceal duplication. Both classification systems have been outlined and referenced in this case report. A computed tomography scan has been included to provide a visual aid to help identify true vermiform appendiceal duplication. The presence of this anatomical abnormality is not a reason for surgical intervention; however, should this be found in the setting of acute appendicitis, aggressive resection of both appendices is mandatory.</p

NOMA Enhanced Backscatter Communication for Green IoT Networks

Backscatter communication has recently emerged as a promising technology to enable the passive sensing-based Internet-of-things (IoT) applications. In a backscatter communication network, uplink transmissions of multiple nodes are usually multiplexed in time- or frequency-domain to avoid collisions, yet it is desirable to improve the uplink capacity further. In this paper, we study a wireless-powered backscatter communication system, where the sensors use a hybrid channel access scheme by combining time division multiplexing access (TDMA) with power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (PD-NOMA) to enhance the system performance in terms of outage probability and throughput. Our analysis shows that the proposed PD-NOMA increases both the spectrum efficiency and the throughput of the system

Evaluation of Procalcitonin Test for Early Diagnosis of Neonatal Sepsis in Tikrit Teaching Hospital

The diagnosis of neonatal infection is challenging because traditional markers of infection are often misleading instead of diagnosing. This study was conducted to determine Procalcitonin (PCT) level as an early marker for diagnosis of suspected sepsis in neonates in comparison with C-reactive protein, blood culture, total and differential white blood cell counts. From August, 2008 till March, 2009, 114 blood samples were collected from neonates (males and females) admitted to the pediatricsneonatal wards at Tikrit Teaching Hospital who were clinically suspected with sepsis as diagnosed by the physician in the hospital with any features suggestive of sepsis. The results of blood culture showed that 53 (46%) of samples were positive, of them 32 (60%) were males and 21 (40%) were females. The number of negative cases were 61 (54%), of them 31 (51%) were females and 30 (49%)were males. The results of identification showed that the most frequent bacterial isolates were Coagulase Negative Staphylococci and Nocardia spp. (22% for each), followed by Listeria monocytogenes 17%, Klebsiella pneumoniae, 9% Pseudomonas aeruginosa 6% and Staphylococcus aureus 6%, while (Citrobacter diversus, Serratia marscesens, Serratia liquifascens, Lactobacillus spp., Peptostreptococcus spp., Micrococcus spp., Streptococcus pyogenes) were frequently less isolated recording 2% for each . The antibiotics susceptibility test revealed that Gram negative isolates showed high resistance to antibiotics used in the present study. Each isolate of the Gram positive bacteria showed different pattern of resistance against the antibiotics used. Results of virulence factor showed that 85%, 100%, 100% , 100% and 62% of Gram negative isolates and 61%, 100% , 89%, 94% and 78% of Gram positive isolated produced Urease , Hemolysin, Lipase, Lecithinase and alkaline protease, respectively. Results of routine hematological tests at which the differences were statistically significant showed that 33% of culture positive cases had leucopenia, 19% of cases had leukocytosis, while the rest were in the category of normal range. For CRP, the differences were not significant among culture positive and culture negative cases. With reference to PCT test which had been measured using the immunochromatographic semi-quantitative method. The results showed that 21% of culture positive cases were with PCT level with high levels distributed among levels of PCT≥0.5 ≥2 ≥10 ng/ml. As for culture negative cases, 49% of PCT were systemic infections cannot be excluded though they were culture negative. In addition PCT results did not fit with CRP all the time since some cases recorded higher level of PCT ≥10 ng/ml despite they were negative for CRP. The comparison between results of PCT and WBC for the same performed cases showed that 68% of cases were in the category of normal WBC range, meanwhile they had high level of PCT. Only 18% were in the category of leukocytosis, and the rest of percentage were in the category of leucopenia. When PCT was compared with other routinely measured parameters used in this study, It seemed to be significantly more sensitive in sepsis diagnosis. Accordingly, we can conclude that PCT is a more sensitive marker than other traditional tests (blood culture, CRP and WBC count) that could be used in early diagnosis of bacterial sepsis in neonate

99mTc-DPD scintigraphy in immunoglobulin light chain (AL) cardiac amyloidosis

AIMS: Technetium-99m-labelled 3,3-diphosphono-1,2-propanodicarboxylic acid (99mTc-DPD scintigraphy) is recognized as highly accurate for the non-invasive diagnosis of transthyretin (ATTR) cardiac amyloidosis (CA). A proportion of patients with immunoglobulin light chain (AL) CA have also been reported to show cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake. Herein, we assessed the frequency and degree of cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake and its clinical significance among patients with AL CA. METHODS AND RESULTS: Between 2010 and 2017, 292 consecutive patients with AL CA underwent 99mTc-DPD scintigraphy and were included in this study: 114 (39%) had cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake: grade 1 in 75%, grade 2 in 17%, and grade 3 in 8% of cases. Patients with cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake had poorer cardiac systolic function and higher N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide. No differences were noted in cardiac magnetic resonance parameters between patients with and without cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake (N = 19 and 42, respectively). Patients with cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake showed a trend to worse survival than those with no uptake (log-rank P = 0.056). Among 22 patients who underwent serial 99mTc-DPD scintigraphy, 5 (23%) showed reduction in the grade of cardiac uptake. CONCLUSIONS: In this large cohort of patients with AL CA, 99mTc-DPD scintigraphy ∼40% of cases showed cardiac uptake, including grade 2-3 in 10% of all patients (25% of those with cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake). Cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake was associated with poorer cardiac function and outcomes. These data highlight the critical importance of ruling out AL amyloidosis in all patients with cardiac 99mTc-DPD uptake to ensure such patients are not assumed to have ATTR CA

Immunoparesis defined by heavy plus light chain suppression is a novel marker of long-term outcomes in cardiac AL amyloidosis

Cardiac involvement and presenting dFLC (difference between involved and uninvolved free light chains) are independent predictors of outcome in systemic AL amyloidosis. These markers have limited prognostic utility in patients surviving the initial months following diagnosis. Here we assessed immunoparesis, as determined by novel heavy+light chain (HLC) immunoassays, as a prognostic marker for survival in AL amyloidosis. HLC measurements identified immunoparesis of at least one immunoglobulin (Ig) isotype in 145 (85%) patients; and severe immunoparesis (≥2 Ig isotypes suppressed by >50% below normal levels) in 29 (17%) patients. Median overall survival (OS) on intention to treat (ITT) analysis was 26·2 months. In the ITT cohort, dFLC >180 mg/l was associated with shorter OS (P = 0·05); whereas HLC immunoparesis was not prognostic. On a landmark analysis of 127 patients alive at 6 months, presenting dFLC was not prognostic for OS (P = 0·33) and severe HLC immunoparesis trended towards poorer survival (20·2 vs. 42·8 months; P = 0·09). In the subset of patients with cardiac involvement, severe HLC immunoparesis conferred very poor outcome (median OS 8·8 vs. 29·9 months, P = 0·007). In conclusion, severe HLC immunoparesis is an independent marker of long-term poor prognosis in AL patients with cardiac involvement. The pathophysiological significance of this observation needs further study

First isolation of two colistin-resistant emerging pathogens, Brevundimonas diminuta and Ochrobactrum anthropi, in a woman with cystic fibrosis: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Cystic fibrosis afflicted lungs support the growth of many bacteria rarely implicated in other cases of human infections.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the isolation and identification, by 16S rRNA amplification and sequencing, of two emerging pathogens resistant to colistin, <it>Brevundimonas diminuta </it>and <it>Ochrobactrum anthropi</it>, in a 17-year-old woman with cystic fibrosis and pneumonia. The patient eventually responded well to a 2-week regime of imipenem and tobramycin.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results clearly re-emphasize the emergence of new colistin-resistant pathogens in patients with cystic fibrosis.</p