Biosorption of heavy metals using Pleurotus Ostreatus fungal mycelium from mushroom farming waste / Prof. Sr. Ir. Dr. Suhaimi Abdul Talib … [et al.]

Industrial wastewater containing heavy metals are hazardous, which pose a detrimental health implication to human and environment. Global industrialization development has increased the discharge of this dangerous industrial wastewater to surface water. It is of great concern nowadays due to its toxicity, non-biodegaradable and cumulative characteristics. Heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium, copper, nickel and mercury, are from metal plating, painting and metal finishing industries. The most commonly used method in heavy metals treatment for industrial wastewater is precipitation with caustic soda. However, this method generates a large amount of hydroxide sludge which need further disposal. In view of this, interest which focus on green sustainable biosorption process, has been intensified among researchers recently. Biosorption is a passive metabolic independent process involving physico-chemical binding of metal ions with biosorbent, which from nonliving biological materials. The biosorbent offers two major advantages, namely, renewable and cost effective. It is easily regenerated by using diluted acid for reuse and transformed from available large amount of bio-waste to wealth. Biosorbents from agricultural and industrial waste which are available in respective countries, such as Brazil, India, Pakistan, Iran, China and Turkey have been investigated. Fungal Pleurotus ostreatus (Chia-Chay et a/., 2011, Javaid et a/., 2011) and sawdust (Zakaria et a/., 2009) are promising biosorbents due to their high heavy metals removal efficiency if compared to other plant or bacteria derived biosorbents. To date, there is lack of information on biosorption of Pleurotus ostreatus Mushroom Spent-Substrate (PSMC) in wastewater heavy metals treatment. Generally, the PSMC is an agricultural waste of mushroom cultivation farm in Malaysia, which majorly consists of rubber tree sawdust and Pleurotus ostreatus mycelium. The disposal of PSMC is currently handled by open-burning or converted into low commercial value organic fertilizer in order to reduce cost for solid waste disposal. Studies on PSMC as a potential biosorbent for heavy metals treatment is yet to be explored. Meanwhile in biosorption study, the half saturation constant of biosorption evaluation is seemed hardly been carried out as a time saving approach for this alternative sustainable technology. Presently, little research is applying the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in biosorption study. Kardam and co-researchers (2010) reported that constructed ANN models were highly precise in predicting the single output variable. In fact, such single output ANN network has a limitation in simulation of biosorption operating system for prediction of effluent quality and the best time for elution of biosorbent under any operating conditions. This study is thus expected to make contribution to the knowledge of scale-up biosorption of heavy metals technology. This study focuses on biosorption characteristics of heavy metals biosorption from aqueous solution by deploying PSMC. The half saturation constant of heavy metals biosorption and the best operating parameters of initial pH, contact time and initial heavy metals concentration were optimized. Biosorption data were fitted to established isotherm, kinetic and thermodynamic models. Concurrently, mechanisms of heavy metals biosorption were studied. Application of biosorbent was evaluated in industrial wastewater. Furthermore, a constructed ANN modelling with two output in biosorption study is explored. This study is not only parallel with green sustainable technology for heavy metals treatment but also waste management

Context-dependent multilingual lexical lookup for under-resourced languages

Current approaches for word sense disambiguation and translation selection typically require lexical resources or large bilingual corpora with rich information fields and annotations, which are often infeasible for under-resourced languages. We extract translation context knowledge from a bilingual comparable corpora of a richer-resourced language pair, and inject it into a multilingual lexicon. The multilingual lexicon can then be used to perform context-dependent lexical lookup on texts of any language, including under-resourced ones. Evaluations on a prototype lookup tool, trained on a English-Malay bilingual Wikipedia corpus, show a precision score of 0.65 (baseline 0.55) and mean reciprocal rank score of 0.81 (baseline 0.771). Based on the early encouraging results, the context-dependent lexical lookup tool may be developed further into an intelligent reading aid, to help users grasp the gist of a second or foreign language text

Observation of oxide precipitates in InN nanostructures

We observed the formation of oxide precipitates (bcc-In(2)O(3)) in InN nanostructures formed during metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and/or subsequent postgrowth procedures in H(2) ambient. It was found that InN is extremely unstable in H(2) ambient and the activation energy of N(2) desorption of InN is measured to be similar to 0.28 eV, which is one order of magnitude smaller than that of reported value of InN in vacuum. Instability of InN nanostructures under H(2) ambient together with residual oxidant in the reactor facilitates the formation of indium oxide precipitates in the nanostructure matrix during MOCVD or the oxidation of residual indium at the surface, resulting in indium oxide dots.open3

Electromagnetic Wave Theory and Applications

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on five research projects.U.S. Department of Transportation Contract DTRS-57-88-C-00078TTD13U.S. Department of Transportation Contract DTRS-57-88-C-00078TTD30Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Contract MDA972-90-C-0021Digital Equipment CorporationIBM CorporationJoint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-89-C-0001Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001Schlumberger-Doll ResearchU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-90-J-1002U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-89-J-1019National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NAGW-1617National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant 958461National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NAGW-1272U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Contract DACA39-87-K-0022U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-89-J-110

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Electromagnetic Wave Theory and Applications

Contains table of contents for Section 3, reports on four research projects and a list of publications.National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NAGW-1617National Aeronautics and Space Administration Agreement 958461National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NAGW-1272U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Contract DACA39-87-K-0022U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-89-J-1107U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1616Digital Equipment CorporationJoint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-90-J-1002U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-89-J-1019U.S. Department of Transportation Agreement DTRS-57-88-C-00078TTD13U.S. Department of Transportation Agreement DTRS-57-88-C-00078TTD30U.S. Department of Transportation Agreement DTRS-57-92-C-00054TTD1DARPA/Consortium for Superconducting Electronics Contract MDA972-90-C-0021National Science Foundation Fellowship MIP 88-5876

Surgical site infection after gastrointestinal surgery in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a prospective, international, multicentre cohort study

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common infections associated with health care, but its importance as a global health priority is not fully understood. We quantified the burden of SSI after gastrointestinal surgery in countries in all parts of the world. Methods: This international, prospective, multicentre cohort study included consecutive patients undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection within 2-week time periods at any health-care facility in any country. Countries with participating centres were stratified into high-income, middle-income, and low-income groups according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI). Data variables from the GlobalSurg 1 study and other studies that have been found to affect the likelihood of SSI were entered into risk adjustment models. The primary outcome measure was the 30-day SSI incidence (defined by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for superficial and deep incisional SSI). Relationships with explanatory variables were examined using Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02662231. Findings: Between Jan 4, 2016, and July 31, 2016, 13 265 records were submitted for analysis. 12 539 patients from 343 hospitals in 66 countries were included. 7339 (58·5%) patient were from high-HDI countries (193 hospitals in 30 countries), 3918 (31·2%) patients were from middle-HDI countries (82 hospitals in 18 countries), and 1282 (10·2%) patients were from low-HDI countries (68 hospitals in 18 countries). In total, 1538 (12·3%) patients had SSI within 30 days of surgery. The incidence of SSI varied between countries with high (691 [9·4%] of 7339 patients), middle (549 [14·0%] of 3918 patients), and low (298 [23·2%] of 1282) HDI (p < 0·001). The highest SSI incidence in each HDI group was after dirty surgery (102 [17·8%] of 574 patients in high-HDI countries; 74 [31·4%] of 236 patients in middle-HDI countries; 72 [39·8%] of 181 patients in low-HDI countries). Following risk factor adjustment, patients in low-HDI countries were at greatest risk of SSI (adjusted odds ratio 1·60, 95% credible interval 1·05–2·37; p=0·030). 132 (21·6%) of 610 patients with an SSI and a microbiology culture result had an infection that was resistant to the prophylactic antibiotic used. Resistant infections were detected in 49 (16·6%) of 295 patients in high-HDI countries, in 37 (19·8%) of 187 patients in middle-HDI countries, and in 46 (35·9%) of 128 patients in low-HDI countries (p < 0·001). Interpretation: Countries with a low HDI carry a disproportionately greater burden of SSI than countries with a middle or high HDI and might have higher rates of antibiotic resistance. In view of WHO recommendations on SSI prevention that highlight the absence of high-quality interventional research, urgent, pragmatic, randomised trials based in LMICs are needed to assess measures aiming to reduce this preventable complication

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio