Climate change, the traditional Chinese calendar and modernity

This era of unpredictable and at times colossal global climactic weather changes place tremendous pressure upon the human internal environment to adapt to these dire changes in the external environment. It places tremendous pressure upon our inner Guardian Qi wei qi as well as the air or atmosphere da qi (which the Chinese Martial artist Lu Ji Tang refers to metaphorically as similar to our inner Guardian Qi). In premodern China, climate change is always contingent upon time and the seasons i.e. the twelve two-hour periods, lunar month, seventy two pentads, twenty four solar periods, the four seasons, the year and the sixty temporal units Jia Zi. The cosmic yin and yang energies of heaven and earth ascend and descend and climate weather conditions during the four seasons resonate with these changes. Humanity must harmonize and adapt to these changes as well. However, the current dominance of modernistic temporal systems by way of the Gregorian calendar and the Greenwich Mean Time has led to the effacement of local and traditional temporal systems such as the Chinese astrocalendrical system. This has led to the spatio-temporal desynchronisation of humanity with the natural flow of the seasons/time shi. This is clearly demonstrated in the practice of Chinese medicine in the southern hemispherical region of Australia and New Zealand where the flow and movement of our Qi is out of synchronization with the occurrence and flow of the seasons/time. To help harmonize our Qi and our health with the nature’s temporal order I have constructed a north-south hemispherical lunisolar calendar, which may contribute towards the synchronization of our respective spatial locales with nature’s motion of temporality

Levels of ATP in different organic wastes under composting conditions

Background: the concentration of ATP in selected samples from the composting process of several organic wastes (municipal solid wastes, wastewater sludge, animal by-products and cow manure) has been determined in order to characterize the aerobic biological activity of such wastes. Results: the values obtained ranged from 0 (in old stable compost from cow manure) to 0.07 μ mol ATP/g dry matter in thermophilic samples of municipal solid wastes composting. In general, it was found that ATP levels were in agreement with the stage of the composting process (initial stage, thermophilic period and maturation). On the other hand, ATP concentration correlated well (p<0.05) with the overall respiration activity during a whole composting process of municipal solid waste at full scale. Conclusion: ATP concentration can be used to determine the biological activity of organic solid wastes in different stages of their biological treatment and to predict compost stability prior to soil application

Application of COMPOCHIP Microarray to Investigate the Bacterial Communities of Different Composts

A microarray spotted with 369 different 16S rRNA gene probes specific to microorganisms involved in the degradation process of organic waste during composting was developed. The microarray was tested with pure cultures, and of the 30,258 individual probe-target hybridization reactions performed, there were only 188 false positive (0.62%) and 22 false negative signals (0.07%). Labeled target DNA was prepared by polymerase chain reaction amplification of 16S rRNA genes using a Cy5-labeled universal bacterial forward primer and a universal reverse primer. The COMPOCHIP microarray was applied to three different compost types (green compost, manure mix compost, and anaerobic digestate compost) of different maturity (2, 8, and 16 weeks), and differences in the microorganisms in the three compost types and maturity stages were observed. Multivariate analysis showed that the bacterial composition of the three composts was different at the beginning of the composting process and became more similar upon maturation. Certain probes (targeting Sphingobacterium, Actinomyces, Xylella/Xanthomonas/ Stenotrophomonas, Microbacterium, Verrucomicrobia, Planctomycetes, Low G + C and Alphaproteobacteria) were more influential in discriminating between different composts. Results from denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis supported those of microarray analysis. This study showed that the COMPOCHIP array is a suitable tool to study bacterial communities in composts

Effect of inoculation dosing on the composting of source-selected organic fraction of municipal solid wastes

The effects of a commercial inoculum (MicroGest 10X, Brookside Agra L.C.) on the field-scale composting of the source-selected organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW) have been studied by following routine parameters of the composting process (temperature, oxygen content and moisture) and biologically-related tests such as the respirometric index and the maturity grade. The inoculum was added to composting piles of OFMSW at different levels: control (no added inoculum), treatment A (10⁵ CFU g⁻¹ of OFMSW), treatment B (10⁶ CFU g⁻¹ of OFMSW) and treatment C (10⁷ CFU g⁻¹ of OFMSW). The inoculum selected produced a significant acceleration of the composting process with high levels of biological activity in the thermophilic phase. In terms of the acceleration of composting and economy the optimal treatment was B, which produced a reduction of approximately half of the total composting time. Treatment C did not improve significantly the results obtained with treatment B, whereas treatment A has little effect on the composting of OFMSW when compared with the control experiment. Respirometric index (determined at 55 °C) and maturity grade appeared to be the most reliable tests to follow the biological activity of the composting of OFMSW. On the other hand, routine parameters such as temperature, oxygen content and moisture showed no significant differences among the different inoculation levels tested in the composting process

Hydrothermal Extraction of Microalgae Fatty Acid Influences Hydrochar Phytotoxicity

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of microalgae biomass for the production of triacylglycerides is a potentially valuable enabling technology for a waste water treatment-based integrated biorefinery. Here, HTC was used to treat Phaeodactylum tricornutum lipid-rich biomass producing a solid hydrochar from the surface of which adsorbed lipids were removed by hexane extraction following filtration of the solid hydrochar from the process liquid product. Approximately 7% of the input biomass was recovered and transesterified for qualitative and quantitative GC-MS analysis for fatty acid methyl esters. Transesterifiable lipids accounted for 94% of the material recovered by solvent extraction. Of the transesterified fatty acids (FA) analyzed, the majority was monounsaturated (40.4%) and saturated (37%) C-16 FA. Other FA detected included saturated and monounsaturated C-18 (7.7 and 1.9%) and saturated C-14 (5.3%) and C-25 (1.5%). Thermal analysis (TGA/DSC) of the hydrochar in air showed calorific values of 10.6 MJ kg−1 (delipidated hydrochar) and 3.1 MJ kg−1 (non-delipidated hydrochar) with the latter exhibiting the presence of volatalizable components. Germination trials were conducted to assess the potential phytotoxic effects of these hydrochars. Delipidated hydrochar showed a germination index of 73% suggesting the presence of some phytotoxicity. Non-delipidated hydrochar showed high germination index results of 102% (unground) and 126% (ground). Taken together with the observation of reduced root hair proliferation in these two test conditions, this suggests the operation of a second phytotoxic effect that is removed by delipidation

Bacterial community profiles on feathers during composting as determined by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of 16S rDNA genes

Composting is one of the more economical and environmentally safe methods of recycling feather waste generated by the poultry industry, since 90% of the feather weight consists of crude keratin protein, and feathers contain 15% N. However, the keratin in waste feathers is resistant to biodegradation and may require the addition of bacterial inocula to enhance the degradation process during composting. Two keratin-degrading bacteria isolated from plumage of wild songbirds and identified as Bacillus licheneformis (OWU 1411T) and Streptomyces sp. (OWU 1441) were inoculated into poultry feather composts (1.13×10 8 cfu g −1 feathers) and co-composted with poultry litter and straw in 200-l compost vessels. Composting temperatures, as well as CO 2 and NH 3 evolution, were measured in these vessels to determine the effects of inoculation on the rate and extent of poultry feather decomposition during composting. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphisms of 16S rRNA genes were used to follow changes in microbial community structure during composting. The results indicated that extensive carbon conversion occurred in both treatments (55.5 and 56.1%). The addition of the bacterial inocula did not enhance the rate of waste feather composting. The microbial community structure over time was very similar in inoculated and uninoculated waste feather composts.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46763/1/253_2004_Article_1788.pd

Dynamic probe selection for studying microbial transcriptome with high-density genomic tiling microarrays

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current commercial high-density oligonucleotide microarrays can hold millions of probe spots on a single microscopic glass slide and are ideal for studying the transcriptome of microbial genomes using a tiling probe design. This paper describes a comprehensive computational pipeline implemented specifically for designing tiling probe sets to study microbial transcriptome profiles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The pipeline identifies every possible probe sequence from both forward and reverse-complement strands of all DNA sequences in the target genome including circular or linear chromosomes and plasmids. Final probe sequence lengths are adjusted based on the maximal oligonucleotide synthesis cycles and best isothermality allowed. Optimal probes are then selected in two stages - sequential and gap-filling. In the sequential stage, probes are selected from sequence windows tiled alongside the genome. In the gap-filling stage, additional probes are selected from the largest gaps between adjacent probes that have already been selected, until a predefined number of probes is reached. Selection of the highest quality probe within each window and gap is based on five criteria: sequence uniqueness, probe self-annealing, melting temperature, oligonucleotide length, and probe position.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The probe selection pipeline evaluates global and local probe sequence properties and selects a set of probes dynamically and evenly distributed along the target genome. Unique to other similar methods, an exact number of non-redundant probes can be designed to utilize all the available probe spots on any chosen microarray platform. The pipeline can be applied to microbial genomes when designing high-density tiling arrays for comparative genomics, ChIP chip, gene expression and comprehensive transcriptome studies.</p

Composting of rice straw with effective microorganisms (EM) and its influence on compost quality.

This study aims to assess the effect of EM application on the composting process of rice straw with goat manure and green waste and to evaluate the quality of both compost treatments. There are two treatment piles in this study, in which one pile was applied with EM and another pile without EM. Each treatment was replicated three times with 90 days of composting duration. The parameters for the temperature, pH, TOC and C/N ratio, show that decomposition of organic matter occurs during the 90-day period. The t-test conducted shows that there is a significant difference between compost with EM and compost without EM. The application of EM in compost increases the macro and micronutrient content. The following parameters support this conclusion: compost applied with EM has more N, P and K content (P < 0.05) compared to compost without EM. Although the Fe in compost with EM is much higher (P < 0.05) than in the compost without EM, for Zn and Cu, there is no significant difference between treatments. This study suggests that the application of EM is suitable to increase the mineralization in the composting process. The final resultant compost indicated that it was in the range of the matured level and can be used without any restriction