Development, Validation, Uptake Rate Modeling and Field Applications of a New Permeation Passive Sampler

Passive air sampling techniques are an attractive alternative to active air sampling because of the lower costs, simple deployment and retrieval methods, minimum training requirements, no need for power sources, etc.. Because of their advantages, passive samplers are now widely used not only for water and indoor, outdoor and workplace air analysis, but also for soil-gas sampling required for various purposes, including vapor intrusion studies, contamination mapping and remediation. A simple and cost effective permeation-type passive sampler, invented in our laboratory, was further developed and validated during this project. The sampler is based on a 1.8 mL crimp-cap gas chromatography autosampler vial equipped with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane and filled with a carbon based adsorbent. Apart from the low material costs of the sampler and ease of fabrication, the design allows for potential automation of the extraction and chromatographic analysis for high-throughput analysis. The use of highly non-polar PDMS reduces water uptake into the sampler and reduces early adsorbent saturation. The thermodynamic properties of PDMS result in moderately low sampling rate effects with temperature variations. Further, the use of PDMS allows for easy estimation of the uptake-rates based on the physicochemical properties of the analytes such as retention indices determined using capillary columns coated with PDMS stationary phase. In the thesis, the theoretical and practical aspects of the new design with regards to uptake kinetics modeling and the dependence of the calibration constants on temperature, humidity, linear flow velocity of air across the sampler surface, sampler geometry, sampling duration, and analyte concentrations are discussed. The permeability of polydimethylsiloxane toward various analytes, as well as thermodynamic parameters such as the energy of activation of permeation through PDMS membranes was determined. Finally, many applications of the passive samplers developed in actual field locations, vital for the field validation and future regulatory acceptance are presented. The areas of application of the samplers include indoor and outdoor air monitoring, horizontal and vertical soil-gas contamination profiling and vapour intrusion studies

Management of Construction Waste in Nuclear and Thermal Power Plant Projects in India

Waste in construction is important both from the perspective of productivity and from environmental considerations. Mostly actual quantum of waste generation exceeds the percentage envisaged initially, causing needless utilization of both natural and human resources. It is understood from project and construction managers during site survey that there is plenty of scope for enhancing project productivity simply by minimizing waste out of construction and also saving the cost as well as extraction of natural resources. This paper attempts to identify the causes towards generation of waste of different types of building materials during various stages of construction in different power plant projects in India. Subsequent to identifcation, methods are proposed to mitigate the generation of construction wastes by adopting appropriate construction and management checks and methods, which allow waste reduction. The use of various building materials in different types of projects has different impact on the amount of waste generation, environment, and cost. Research data were gathered from the analysis of fve power plant projects under construction or already completed in different states in India. The causes of such occurrences of each item and details have been analysed from the questionnaire survey and the same was processed for normalizing, data cleaning, and reliability analysis done through SPSS. The result of the frst questionnaire was used along with site inputs/factual data to project the tabulation of perception versus reality. Furthermore, a second questionnaire was initiated for the validation of the above using non parametric statistic test and suitable recommendations were given to reduce wastage. The research paper reveals the major root causes for material wastage in construction of power plant projects and proper awareness to be created to the relevant project team by training. The fndings of this paper would help in enhancing project productivity during construction, cost savings to the extent of 1.667% to 1.941% of total project cost and minimizing the extraction of natural resources

Swelling of PDMS Networks in Solvent Vapours; Applications for Passive RFID Wireless Sensors

The relative degree of swelling of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) network in organic vapours is demonstrated to be related to the chemical and physical properties of the organic compounds. The swelling ratio, based on volume change, QV, is directly correlated with the Hansen solubility parameters, dd, dp and dh and the vapour pressures of the organic vapours employed. A practical use for such PDMS networks in combination with an understanding of the relationship is demonstrated by the use of PDMS as a mechanical actuator in a prototype wireless RFID passive sensor. The swelling of the PDMS displaces a feed loop resulting in an increase in transmitted power, at a fixed distance

DNA Metabarcoding Authentication of Ayurvedic Herbal Products on the European Market Raises Concerns of Quality and Fidelity

Ayurveda is one of the oldest systems of medicine in the world, but the growing commercial interest in Ayurveda based products has increased the incentive for adulteration and substitution within this herbal market. Fraudulent practices such as the use of undeclared fillers and use of other species of inferior quality is driven both by the increased as well as insufficient supply capacity of especially wild plant species. Developing novel strategies to exhaustively assess and monitor both the quality of raw materials and final marketed herbal products is a challenge in herbal pharmacovigilance. Seventy-nine Ayurvedic herbal products sold as tablets, capsules, powders, and extracts were randomly purchased via e-commerce and pharmacies across Europe, and DNA metabarcoding was used to assess the ability of this method to authenticate these products. Our analysis reveals that only two out of 12 single ingredient products contained only one species as labeled, eight out of 27 multiple ingredient products contained none of the species listed on the label, and the remaining 19 products contained 1 to 5 of the species listed on the label along with many other species not specified on the label. The fidelity for single ingredient products was 67%, the overall ingredient fidelity for multi ingredient products was 21%, and for all products 24%. The low level of fidelity raises concerns about the reliability of the products, and detection of threatened species raises further concerns about illegal plant trade. The study highlights the necessity for quality control of the marketed herbal products and shows that DNA metabarcoding is an effective analytical approach to authenticate complex multi ingredient herbal products. However, effort needs to be done to standardize the protocols for DNA metabarcoding before this approach can be implemented as routine analytical approaches for plant identification, and approved for use in regulated procedures

Levering proteomic analysis of Pseudomonas fluorescens mediated resistance responses in tomato during pathogenicity of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. oxysporum

The tomato, one of the world’s most extensively cultivated and consumed vegetable crops is negatively impacted by various pathogens. This study aimed to observe the differentially expressed proteins in tomato samples in plant–pathogen-biocontrol interactions. The fungal pathogen associated with wilted plants were isolated and identified based on its morphological and molecular characteristics. Fourteen strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens from agricultural soils were identified and described using biochemical assays, molecular analyses, and screening for antagonistic ability against the Fusarium wilt pathogen. Results demonstrated that the potential of P. fluorescens (TPf12) positively influenced the expression of antagonism against tomato wilt disease. A total of 14 proteins expressed differently were revealed in the 2D-PAGE-MS investigation. Proteins such as nucleoside diphosphate kinase, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, protein kinase family protein, Ser/Thr protein kinase-like are unchanged in FOL pathogen interaction, but up-regulated in FOL + TPf12 treated roots, and lipid transfer-like protein, and phenylalanine ammonia-lyase were down-regulated in FOL infested roots and upregulated in FOL + TPf12 treated tomato roots. Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase protein expression is commonly found in TPf12 bioenriched roots, and FOL + TPf12 treated roots, indicating its role in response to the application of TPf12 in tomato. A GC–MS analysis was performed to detect the bioactive metabolites synthesized by TPf12. Molecular docking investigations were conducted using the maestro’s GLIDE docking module of the Schrodinger Software program. Among the secondary metabolites, Cyclohexanepropanoic acid, 2-oxo-, methyl ester (CAS), and 3-o-(4-o-Beta-D-Galactopyranosyl-Beta-D-Galactopyraosyl)-2-Acetylamino-2-Deoxy-D-Galactose were shown to be top-ranked with a least docking score against each differently expressed proteins. The profiled molecules expressed differently due to plant-pathogen-biocontrol interactions may be directly or incidentally involved in the wilt disease resistance of tomato plants

Analysis of biogenic carbonyl compounds in rainwater by stir bar sorptive extraction technique with chemical derivatization and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Stir bar sorptive extraction is a powerful technique for the extraction and analysis of organic compounds in aqueous matrices. Carbonyl compounds are ubiquitous components in rainwater, however, it is a major challenge to accurately identify and sensitively quantify carbonyls from rainwater due to the complex matrix. A stir bar sorptive extraction technique was developed to efficiently extract carbonyls from aqueous samples following chemical derivatization by O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl) hydroxylamine hydrochloride. Several commercial stir bars in two sizes were used to simultaneously measure 29 carbonyls in aqueous samples with detection by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. A100 mL aqueous sample was extracted by stir bars and the analytes on stir barswere desorbed into a 2mLsolvent solution in an ultrasonic bath. The preconcentration Coefficient for different carbonyls varied between 30 and 45 times. The limits of detection of stir bar sorptive extraction with gas chromatography mass spectrometry for carbonyls (1030 ng/L) were improved by ten times compared with other methods such as gas chromatography with electron capture detection and stir bar sorptive extraction with high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The technique was used to determine carbonyls in rainwater samples collected in York, UK, and 20 carbonyl species were quantified including glyoxal, methylglyoxal, isobutenal, 2-hydroxy ethanal

Intravenous Sodium Thiosulphate for Calciphylaxis of Chronic Kidney Disease:A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Importance: Calciphylaxis is a rare disease with high mortality mainly involving patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Sodium thiosulphate (STS) has been used as an off-label therapeutic in calciphylaxis, but there is a lack of clinical trials and studies that demonstrate its effect compared with those without STS treatment. Objective: To perform a meta-analysis of the cohort studies that provided data comparing outcomes among patients with calciphylaxis treated with and without intravenous STS. Data Sources: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched using relevant terms and synonyms including sodium thiosulphate and calci∗ without language restriction. Study Selection: The initial search was for cohort studies published before August 31, 2021, that included adult patients diagnosed with CKD experiencing calciphylaxis and could provide a comparison between patients treated with and without intravenous STS. Studies were excluded if they reported outcomes only from nonintravenous administration of STS or if the outcomes for CKD patients were not provided. Data Extraction and Synthesis: Random-effects models were performed. The Egger test was used to measure publication bias. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2test. Main Outcomes and Measures: Skin lesion improvement and survival, synthesized as ratio data by a random-effects empirical Bayes model. Results: Among the 5601 publications retrieved from the targeted databases, 19 retrospective cohort studies including 422 patients (mean age, 57 years; 37.3% male) met the eligibility criteria. No difference was observed in skin lesion improvement (12 studies with 110 patients; risk ratio, 1.23; 95% CI, 0.85-1.78) between the STS and the comparator groups. No difference was noted for the risk of death (15 studies with 158 patients; risk ratio, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.70-1.10) and overall survival using time-to-event data (3 studies with 269 participants; hazard ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.57-1.18). In meta-regression, lesion improvement associated with STS negatively correlated with publication year, implying that recent studies are more likely to report a null association compared with past studies (coefficient = -0.14; P =.008). Conclusions and Relevance: Intravenous STS was not associated with skin lesion improvement or survival benefit in patients with CKD experiencing calciphylaxis. Future investigations are warranted to examine the efficacy and safety of therapies for patients with calciphylaxis.</p

Authentication of Garcinia fruits and food supplements using DNA barcoding and NMR spectroscopy

Garcinia L. (Clusiaceae) fruits are a rich source of (−)-hydroxycitric acid, and this has gained considerable attention as an anti-obesity agent and a popular weight loss food supplement. In this study, we assessed adulteration of morphologically similar samples of Garcinia using DNA barcoding, and used NMR to quantify the content of (−)-hydroxycitric acid and (−)-hydroxycitric acid lactone in raw herbal drugs and Garcinia food supplements. DNA barcoding revealed that mostly G. gummi-gutta (previously known as G. cambogia) and G. indica were traded in Indian herbal markets, and there was no adulteration. The content of (−)-hydroxycitric acid and (−)-hydroxycitric acid lactone in the two species varied from 1.7% to 16.3%, and 3.5% to 20.7% respectively. Analysis of ten Garcinia food supplements revealed a large variation in the content of (−)-hydroxycitric acid, from 29 mg (4.6%) to 289 mg (50.6%) content per capsule or tablet. Only one product contained quantifiable amounts of (−)-hydroxycitric acid lactone. Furthermore the study demonstrates that DNA barcoding and NMR could be effectively used as a regulatory tool to authenticate Garcinia fruit rinds and food supplements