Low-level radioactive waste management at Argonne National Laboratory-East

This paper is an overview of the low-level radioactive waste management practices and treatment systems at Argonne National Laboratory - East (ANL-E). It addresses the systems, processes, types of waste treated, and the status and performance of the systems. ANL-E is a Department of Energy laboratory that is engaged in a variety of research projects, some of which generate radioactive waste, in addition a significant amount of radioactive waste remains from previous projects and decontamination and decommissioning of facilities where this work was performed

Growth in Turface clay permits root hair phenotyping along the entire crown root in cereal and demonstrates that root hair growth can extend well beyond the root hair zone Final tech report Annex 10

This research was supported by grants from CIFSRF to MNR from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Ottawa) and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development (DFATD).This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.In cereal crops, root hairs are reported to function within the root hair zone to carry out important roles in nutrient and water absorption. Nevertheless, these single cells remain understudied due to the practical challenges of phenotyping these delicate structures in large cereal crops growing on soil or other growth systems. Here we present an alternative growth system for examining the root hairs of cereal crops: the use of coarse Turface® clay alongside fertigation. This system allowed for root hairs to be easily visualized along the entire lengths of crown roots in three different cereal crops (maize, wheat, and finger millet). Surprisingly, we observed that the root hairs in these crops continued to grow beyond the canonical root hair zone, with the most root hair growth occurring on older crown root segments. We suggest that the Turface® fertigation system may permit a better understanding of the changing dynamics of root hairs as they age in large plants, and may facilitate new avenues for crop improvement below ground. However, the relevance of this system to field conditions must be further evaluated in other crops

Slow mitochondrial DNA sequence evolution in the Anthozoa (Cnidaria)

Mitochondrial genes have been used extensively in population genetic and phylogeographical analyses, in part due to a high rate of nucleotide substitution in animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Nucleotide sequences of anthozoan mitochondrial genes, however, are virtually invariant among conspecifics, even at third codon positions of protein-coding sequences. Hence, mtDNA markers are of limited use for population-level studies in these organisms. Mitochondrial gene sequence divergence among anthozoan species is also low relative to that exhibited in other animals, although higher level relationships can be resolved with these markers. Substitution rates in anthozoan nuclear genes are much higher than in mitochondrial genes, whereas nuclear genes in other metazoans usually evolve more slowly than, or similar to, mitochondrial genes. Although several mechanisms accounting for a slow rate of sequence evolution have been proposed, there is not yet a definitive explanation for this observation. Slow evolution and unique characteristics may be common in primitive metazoans, suggesting that patterns of mtDNA evolution in these organisms differ from that in other animal systems

Argonne National Laboratory`s photo-oxidation organic mixed waste treatment system - installation and startup testing

This paper describes the installation and startup testing of the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL-E) Photo-Oxidation Organic Mixed Waste Treatment System. This system will treat organic mixed (i.e., radioactive and hazardous) waste by oxidizing the organics to carbon dioxide and inorganic salts in an aqueous media. The residue will be treated in the existing radwaste evaporators. The system is installed in the Waste Management Facility at the ANL-E site in Argonne, Illinois. 1 fig

Ecological leads for natural product discovery: novel sesquiterpene hydroquinones from the red macroalga Peyssonnelia sp

Pharmacologically-motivated marine natural product investigations have yielded a large variety of structurally unique compounds with interesting biomedical properties, but the natural roles of these molecules often remain unknown. While secondary metabolites may function as antimicrobial chemical defenses, few studies have examined this hypothesis. In the present investigation, chromatographic fractions from 69 collections of Fijian red macroalgae representing at least 43 species were evaluated for growth inhibition of three microbial pathogens and saprophytes of marine macrophytes. At least one microbe was suppressed by fraction(s) of all evaluated algae, suggesting that antimicrobial defenses are common among tropical seaweeds. From these leads, peyssonoic acids A-B (1-2), novel sesquiterpene hydroquinones, were isolated from the crustose red alga Peyssonnelia sp. At ecologically realistic concentrations, both compounds inhibited growth of Pseudoalteromonas bacteriolytica, a bacterial pathogen of marine algae, and Lindra thalassiae, a fungal pathogen of marine algae, and exhibited modest antineoplastic activity against ovarian cancer cells. The peyssonoic acids included one novel carbon skeleton and illustrated the utility of ecological studies in natural product discovery

Experimental development of a two-stage fluidized-bed/cyclonic agglomerating incinerator

The Institute of Gas Technology (IGT) is conducting an experimental program to develop and test through pilot-plant scale of operation, IGT's two-stage fluidized-bed/cyclonic agglomerating incinerator (TSI). The TSI is based on combining the fluidized-bed agglomeration/gasification technology and the cyclonic combustion/incineration technology, which have been developed at IGT over many years. The TSI is a unique and extremely flexible combustor that can operate over a wide range of conditions in the fluidized-bed first stage from low temperature (desorption) to high temperature (agglomeration) including gasification of high-Btu wastes. The TSI can easily and efficiently destroy solid, liquid and gaseous organic wastes, while containing solid inorganic contaminants within an essentially non-leachable glassy matrix, suitable for disposal in an ordinary landfill. This paper presents the results of tests conducted in a batch, fluidized-bed bench-scale unit (BSU) with commercially available clean'' top soil and the same soil spiked with lead and chromium compounds. The objectives of these tests were to determine the operating conditions necessary to achieve soil agglomeration and to evaluate the leaching characteristics of the soil agglomerates formed. 7 refs., 7 figs., 6 tabs

Role of PKCɛ in PGF2α-Stimulated MMP-2 Secretion from Human Ciliary Muscle Cells

Studies were designed to examine the roles of individual protein kinase C (PKC) isoforms in the prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α)-induced matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) secretion from human ciliary muscle cells