Adsorption and bioadsorption of granular activated carbon (GAC) for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal in wastewater

In this study, the performances of GAC adsorption and GAC bioadsorption in terms of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal were investigated with synthetic biologically treated sewage effluent (BTSE), synthetic primary treated sewage effluent (PTSE), real BTSE and real PTSE. The main aims of this study are to verify and compare the efficiency of DOC removal by GAC (adsorption) and acclimatized GAC (bioadsorption). The results indicated that the performance of bioadsorption was significantly better than that of adsorption in all cases, showing the practical use of biological granular activated carbon (BGAC) in filtration process. The most significance was observed at a real PTSE with a GAC dose of 5 g/L, having 54% and 96% of DOC removal by adsorption and bioadsorption, respectively. In addition, it was found that GAC adsorption equilibrium was successfully predicted by a hybrid Langmuir-Freundlich model whilst integrated linear driving force approximation (LDFA) + hybrid isotherm model could describe well the adsorption kinetics. Both adsorption isotherm and kinetic coefficients determined by these models will be useful to model the adsorption/bioadsorption process in DOC removal of BGAC filtration system. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Physico-chemical processes for landfill leachate treatment: Experiments and mathematical models

In this study, the adsorption of synthetic landfill leachate onto four kinds of activated carbon has been investigated. From the equilibrium and kinetics experiments, it was observed that coal based PAC presented the highest organic pollutants removal efficiency (54%), followed by coal based GAC (50%), wood based GAC (33%) and wood based PAC (14%). The adsorption equilibrium of PAC and GAC was successfully predicted by Henry-Freundlich adsorption model whilst LDFA+Dual isotherm Kinetics model could describe well the batch adsorption kinetics. The flocculation and flocculation-adsorption experiments were also conducted. The results indicated that flocculation did not perform well on organics removal because of the dominance of low molecular weight organic compounds in synthetic landfill leachate. Consequently, flocculation as pretreatment to adsorption and a combination of flocculation-adsorption could not improve much the organic removal efficiency for the single adsorption process

Staged surgical treatment for severe and rigid scoliosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A retrospective study of staged surgery for severe rigid scoliosis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the result of staged surgery in treatment of severe rigid scoliosis and to discuss the indications.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From 1998 to 2006, 21 cases of severe rigid scoliosis with coronal Cobb angle more than 80° were treated by staged surgeries including anterior release and halo-pelvic traction as first stage surgery and posterior instrumentation and spinal fusion as second stage. Pedicle subtraction osteotomy(PSO) was added in second stage according to spine rigidity. Among the 21 patients, 8 were male and 13 female with an average age of 15.3 years (rang from 4 to 23 years). The mean pre-operative Cobb angle was 110.5° (80°-145°) with a mean spine flexibility of 13%. Radiological parameters at different operative time points were analyzed (mean time of follow-up: 51 months).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>External appearance of all patients improved significantly. The average correction rate was 65.2% (ranging from 39.8% to 79.5%) with mean correction loss of 2.23° at the end of follow-up. No decompensation of trunk has been found. Mean distance between the midline of C7 and midsacral line was 1.19 cm ± 0.51. Two patients had neurological complications: one patient had motor deficit and recovered incompletely.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Staged operation and halo-pelvic traction offer a safe and effective way in treatment of severe rigid scoliosis. Patients whose Cobb angle was more than 80° and the flexibility of the spine was less than 20% should be treated in this way, and those whose flexibility of the spine was less than 10% and the Cobb angle remained more than 70° after 1st stage anterior release and halo-pelvic traction should undergo pedicle subtraction osteotomy (PSO) in the second surgery.</p

Spatial and temporal variations of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in water and sediments from Honghu Lake, China

Honghu Lake in Jianghan Plain, central China is an important habitat for many migratory birds and an important site for freshwater fishery, and Honghu Lake region is also a main area for rice and cotton production in China. To understand the status and changes of organochlorine pesticide (OCP) contamination, and to assess the OCPs' risks for the ecosystem in Honghu Lake, thirty surface water samples, fifteen surface sediments, and a sediment core were collected in January and July, 2005. OCPs, such as DDTs, HCHs and chlordanes, were determined by GC-ECD in all samples. Concentrations of OCPs in surface water collected during the wet season (July 2005) were relatively higher than those collected during the dry season (January 2005), indicating that the increasing land runoff during the summer might bring the chemical residues from soils to Honghu Lake. The relatively low alpha-HCH/gamma-HCH ratio and the relatively high o,p'-DDT/p,p'-DDT ratio indicated the application of lindane on regional agricultural lands in late spring and summer (April-August), which increased the increasing contribution of dicofol to DDT in Honghu Lake, respectively. The levels of Sigma HCHs and Sigma DDTs in the surface sediments were relatively lower than those from the Yangtze River Delta, but comparable to those from other lakes and rivers in China. The composition of HCHs and DDTs in the surface sediments showed that there was fresh input of lindane (gamma-HCH), and DDT residues in Honghu Lake were aged and probably mainly originated from weathered agricultural soils of surrounding Jianghan Plain. Wash out of HCHs and DDTs from soil was the possible process which caused the increasing concentrations of these chemicals in recent years. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Honghu Lake in Jianghan Plain, central China is an important habitat for many migratory birds and an important site for freshwater fishery, and Honghu Lake region is also a main area for rice and cotton production in China. To understand the status and changes of organochlorine pesticide (OCP) contamination, and to assess the OCPs' risks for the ecosystem in Honghu Lake, thirty surface water samples, fifteen surface sediments, and a sediment core were collected in January and July, 2005. OCPs, such as DDTs, HCHs and chlordanes, were determined by GC-ECD in all samples. Concentrations of OCPs in surface water collected during the wet season (July 2005) were relatively higher than those collected during the dry season (January 2005), indicating that the increasing land runoff during the summer might bring the chemical residues from soils to Honghu Lake. The relatively low alpha-HCH/gamma-HCH ratio and the relatively high o,p'-DDT/p,p'-DDT ratio indicated the application of lindane on regional agricultural lands in late spring and summer (April-August), which increased the increasing contribution of dicofol to DDT in Honghu Lake, respectively. The levels of Sigma HCHs and Sigma DDTs in the surface sediments were relatively lower than those from the Yangtze River Delta, but comparable to those from other lakes and rivers in China. The composition of HCHs and DDTs in the surface sediments showed that there was fresh input of lindane (gamma-HCH), and DDT residues in Honghu Lake were aged and probably mainly originated from weathered agricultural soils of surrounding Jianghan Plain. Wash out of HCHs and DDTs from soil was the possible process which caused the increasing concentrations of these chemicals in recent years. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Improved photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 derived from cyanamide-urea solution

This paper describes the fabrication of g-C3N4 by the polymerization of cyanamide-urea solution at elevated temperatures. The textural properties and electronic band structure of the obtained g-C3N4 were investigated in detail. The photocatalytic activity for both oxidative and reductive reactions of the as-synthesized g-C3N4 was found to be enhanced as the polymerization temperature increase and the g-C3N4 obtained at 700 degrees C (CN-700) showed the best photocatalytic activity under visible-light (lambda > 420 nm). Considering that the rather wide band gap (3.01 eV) of CN-700 disables the electron transition from the valence band to the conduction band by visible light (l > 420 nm), it is believed the n-pi* transition, which is alternatively proposed in this study, plays a key role in its photocatalytic activity. In light of this discovery, the variation of the electron-transition mechanism for g-C3N4 fabricated at different polymerization temperatures has been firstly investigated

Adjusting a cancer mortality-prediction model for disease status-related eligibility criteria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Volunteering participants in disease studies tend to be healthier than the general population partially due to specific enrollment criteria. Using modeling to accurately predict outcomes of cohort studies enrolling volunteers requires adjusting for the bias introduced in this way. Here we propose a new method to account for the effect of a specific form of healthy volunteer bias resulting from imposing disease status-related eligibility criteria, on disease-specific mortality, by explicitly modeling the length of the time interval between the moment when the subject becomes ineligible for the study, and the outcome.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using survival time data from 1190 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center, we model the time from clinical lung cancer diagnosis to death using an exponential distribution to approximate the length of this interval for a study where lung cancer death serves as the outcome. Incorporating this interval into our previously developed lung cancer risk model, we adjust for the effect of disease status-related eligibility criteria in predicting the number of lung cancer deaths in the control arm of CARET. The effect of the adjustment using the MD Anderson-derived approximation is compared to that based on SEER data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using the adjustment developed in conjunction with our existing lung cancer model, we are able to accurately predict the number of lung cancer deaths observed in the control arm of CARET.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The resulting adjustment was accurate in predicting the lower rates of disease observed in the early years while still maintaining reasonable prediction ability in the later years of the trial. This method could be used to adjust for, or predict the duration and relative effect of any possible biases related to disease-specific eligibility criteria in modeling studies of volunteer-based cohorts.</p

Methods to study splicing from high-throughput RNA Sequencing data

The development of novel high-throughput sequencing (HTS) methods for RNA (RNA-Seq) has provided a very powerful mean to study splicing under multiple conditions at unprecedented depth. However, the complexity of the information to be analyzed has turned this into a challenging task. In the last few years, a plethora of tools have been developed, allowing researchers to process RNA-Seq data to study the expression of isoforms and splicing events, and their relative changes under different conditions. We provide an overview of the methods available to study splicing from short RNA-Seq data. We group the methods according to the different questions they address: 1) Assignment of the sequencing reads to their likely gene of origin. This is addressed by methods that map reads to the genome and/or to the available gene annotations. 2) Recovering the sequence of splicing events and isoforms. This is addressed by transcript reconstruction and de novo assembly methods. 3) Quantification of events and isoforms. Either after reconstructing transcripts or using an annotation, many methods estimate the expression level or the relative usage of isoforms and/or events. 4) Providing an isoform or event view of differential splicing or expression. These include methods that compare relative event/isoform abundance or isoform expression across two or more conditions. 5) Visualizing splicing regulation. Various tools facilitate the visualization of the RNA-Seq data in the context of alternative splicing. In this review, we do not describe the specific mathematical models behind each method. Our aim is rather to provide an overview that could serve as an entry point for users who need to decide on a suitable tool for a specific analysis. We also attempt to propose a classification of the tools according to the operations they do, to facilitate the comparison and choice of methods.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figure, 9 tables. Small corrections adde