Evaluation of physico-chemical and microbial parameters on water quality of Narmada River, India

The present study was carried out to ascertain the quality of water at western zone of Narmada River of Madhya Pradesh (India). Due to heavy discharge of harmful and deleterious substances in river, the biological, chemical and physical characteristics of water have changed to a considerable extent. The objectives of this study were to find out the changes in physico-chemical nature as well as biological health of Narmada River. A thorough study was done on the basis of prevailing seasons. The deterioration of water quality was noticed at lower site of water body in a particular season as low temperature, dissolved oxygen and higher concentration of content of chlorine, etc., all pointing towards the nutrient enrichment. This evaluation will be immensely helpful to estimate the effect of impoundments on the quality of water, fisheries development and reservoir management policy. The microbial analysis was also conducted in terms of most probable number (MPN) of total coliforms in water sample and its highest value (1239) was reported from downstream of Omkareshwar dam site of Narmada River. Water quality index of all sites of Narmada River was calculated for three seasons, viz. summer, monsoon and winter and it was found to be highest (123) at Koteshwar dam site of river in monsoon season and the lowest (70) was observed in water of upstream of Omkareshwar dam during winter. The suitable correlation coefficients were calculated for 7 pairs of variables and correlation matrices were then established seasonally.Key words: Impoundments, water quality index, dissolved oxygen, most probable numbe

Trehalose-6-phosphate-mediated toxicity determines essentiality of OtsB2 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro and in mice

Trehalose biosynthesis is considered an attractive target for the development of antimicrobials against fungal, helminthic and bacterial pathogens including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The most common biosynthetic route involves trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P) synthase OtsA and T6P phosphatase OtsB that generate trehalose from ADP/UDP-glucose and glucose-6-phosphate. In order to assess the drug target potential of T6P phosphatase, we generated a conditional mutant of M. tuberculosis allowing the regulated gene silencing of the T6P phosphatase gene otsB2. We found that otsB2 is essential for growth of M. tuberculosis in vitro as well as for the acute infection phase in mice following aerosol infection. By contrast, otsB2 is not essential for the chronic infection phase in mice, highlighting the substantial remodelling of trehalose metabolism during infection by M. tuberculosis. Blocking OtsB2 resulted in the accumulation of its substrate T6P, which appears to be toxic, leading to the self-poisoning of cells. Accordingly, blocking T6P production in a ΔotsA mutant abrogated otsB2 essentiality. T6P accumulation elicited a global upregulation of more than 800 genes, which might result from an increase in RNA stability implied by the enhanced neutralization of toxins exhibiting ribonuclease activity. Surprisingly, overlap with the stress response caused by the accumulation of another toxic sugar phosphate molecule, maltose-1-phosphate, was minimal. A genome-wide screen for synthetic lethal interactions with otsA identified numerous genes, revealing additional potential drug targets synergistic with OtsB2 suitable for combination therapies that would minimize the emergence of resistance to OtsB2 inhibitors

Advances in research on the use of biochar in soil for remediation: a review

Purpose: Soil contamination mainly from human activities remains a major environmental problem in the contemporary world. Significant work has been undertaken to position biochar as a readily-available material useful for the management of contaminants in various environmental media notably soil. Here, we review the increasing research on the use of biochar in soil for the remediation of some organic and inorganic contaminants.  Materials and methods: Bibliometric analysis was carried out within the past 10 years to determine the increasing trend in research related to biochar in soil for contaminant remediation. Five exemplar contaminants were reviewed in both laboratory and field-based studies. These included two inorganic (i.e., As and Pb) and three organic classes (i.e., sulfamethoxazole, atrazine, and PAHs). The contaminants were selected based on bibliometric data and as representatives of their various contaminant classes. For example, As and Pb are potentially toxic elements (anionic and cationic, respectively), while sulfamethoxazole, atrazine, and PAHs represent antibiotics, herbicides, and hydrocarbons, respectively.  Results and discussion: The interaction between biochar and contaminants in soil is largely driven by biochar precursor material and pyrolysis temperature as well as some characteristics of the contaminants such as octanol-water partition coefficient (KOW) and polarity. The structural and chemical characteristics of biochar in turn determine the major sorption mechanisms and define biochar’s suitability for contaminant sorption. Based on the reviewed literature, a soil treatment plan is suggested to guide the application of biochar in various soil types (paddy soils, brownfield, and mine soils) at different pH levels (4–5.5) and contaminant concentrations ( 50 mg kg−1).  Conclusions: Research on biochar has grown over the years with significant focus on its properties, and how these affect biochar’s ability to immobilize organic and inorganic contaminants in soil. Few of these studies have been field-based. More studies with greater focus on field-based soil remediation are therefore required to fully understand the behavior of biochar under natural circumstances. Other recommendations are made aimed at stimulating future research in areas where significant knowledge gaps exist

Search for dark matter candidates and large extra dimensions in events with a jet and missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector

Open Access, Copyright CERN, for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited

Evaluation of long-term changes of solar radiation in India

Temporal and spatial variability in annually averaged global irradiance, diffuse irradiance, and bright sunshine duration over twelve stations of solar radiation network of India Meteorological Department (IMD) were evaluated for the period 1971-2005. Annually averaged all-sky global irradiance decreased between 0.1 (0.3 Wm -2) and 3.6 (9.0 Wm -2) per decade at the stations. The decrease in sunshine duration was concomitant with the decrease in global solar irradiance. The long-term trends in diffuse irradiance differed markedly between the twelve stations. Significant increasing trend in diffuse irradiance were found at the four stations under all-sky conditions, while seven stations showed increasing trend under clear sky conditions. The two most probable causes of long-term trends in radiation are changes in aerosol loading and cloud cover. Trend analyses of Angstrom's turbidity coefficient measured at three stations of IMD during the last three decades indicate that total column aerosol has increased significantly. Trend analysis of bright sunshine duration suggests long-term decrease at all the stations. Reduction in bright sunshine hours varied from 0.0 to 0.5 h per decade. There is a strong northwest-northeast gradient in sunshine duration which contributes to the spatial trends in global and diffuse solar irradiance. This paper examines the trends of global irradiance, diffuse irradiance and sunshine duration over India in all-sky conditions as well as cloud-free skies so the effect of cloud cover can be examined

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