The sustainability of desalination as a remedy to the water crisis in the agriculture sector: An analysis from the climate-water-energy-food nexus perspective

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData Availability: No data was used for the research described in the article.Over the years, desalination has become integral to water resources management, primarily in coastal semi-arid to arid regions. While desalinated seawater has mainly been supplied to municipal and high-revenue industries, the agriculture sector faces increasing irrigation demands, making it a potential user. This review assesses the sustainability of using desalinated seawater for irrigation, shedding light on its limitations and potential. Using desalinated water for irrigation presents challenges, including its high energy consumption, potential contribution to climate change, and agronomy-related concerns. However, evidence suggests that these challenges can be addressed effectively through tailor-fitted strategies. That said, conventional binary decision-making paradigms that label practices as good or bad and focus on a singular, isolated aspect are insufficient for evaluating the sustainability of desalination due to the complex and interconnected nature of the issues involved. To overcome this, the climate-water-energy-food (CWEF) nexus concept is proposed as a comprehensive framework for sustainability assessment. Adopting the CWEF nexus approach allows for a better understanding of the potential challenges associated with using desalinated water for irrigation, encompassing social, economic and environmental concerns. To ensure effective management of these challenges, it is crucial to tailor desalination projects to specific regional conditions and employ either prophylactic or corrective strategies. By embracing the CWEF nexus approach, informed decisions can be made regarding the future utilization of desalinated water for irrigation, contributing to broader sustainability goals

Las Vegas Flute Club Teacher\u27s Exposition Recital

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Discourse over the sustainability of irrigation with desalinated water in light of the water-energy-food nexus

This is the final version. Available from EWRA via the link in this recordDesalinated seawater has gained increasing popularity as an option for water-stressed regions worldwide to meet a general increase in water demand across most sectors. Considering current water and food crises that are exacerbating in many regions, desalination has gained traction as a suitable solution to alleviate these problems as a potentially limitless alternative water source. The agricultural industry is the largest global water consumer and the sector that is most likely to benefit from this technology to meet the increasing demand for irrigation. Despite the technology’s considerable potential, there are numerous issues related the technology’s sustainability that may prevent it from becoming a widely used solution for irrigation purposes. However, being affected by numerous interconnected factors, water resources problems are nuanced and multi-disciplinary. To account for these intricacies in the evaluation of the sustainability of this option for irrigation, the concept of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Security Nexus can be used. This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the sustainability of the use of desalinated water for irrigation considering the WEF Security Nexus

A review of limitations and potentials of desalination as a sustainable source of water

This is the final version. Available on open access from Springer via the DOI in this recordData availability: All used data have been presented in the paper.For centuries, desalination, in one way or another, has helped alleviate water scarcity. Over time, desalination has gone through an evolutionary process influenced largely by available contemporary technology. This improvement, for the most part, was reflected in the energy efficiency and, in turn, in terms of the cost-effectiveness of this practice. Thanks to such advancements, by the 1960s, the desalination industry experienced notable exponential growth, becoming a formidable option to supplement conventional water resources with a reliable non-conventional resource. That said, often, there are pressing associated issues, most notably environmental, socioeconomic, health, and relatively recently, agronomic concerns. Such reservations raise the question of whether desalination is indeed a sustainable solution to current water supply problems. This is exceptionally important to understand in light of the looming water and food crises. This paper, thus, tends to review these potential issues from the sustainability perspective. It is concluded that the aforementioned issues are indeed major concerns, but they can be mitigated by actions that consider the local context. These may be either prophylactic, proactive measures that require careful planning to tailor the situation to best fit a given region or reactive measures such as incorporating pre- (e.g., removing particles, debris, microorganisms, suspended solids, and silt from the intake water prior to the desalination process) and post-treatments (e.g., reintroducing calcium and magnesium ions to water to enhance its quality for irrigation purposes) to target specific shortcomings of desalination

Comparative study of the extracellular proteome of Sulfolobus species reveals limited secretion

Although a large number of potentially secreted proteins can be predicted on the basis of genomic distribution of signal sequence-bearing proteins, protein secretion in Archaea has barely been studied. A proteomic inventory and comparison of the growth medium proteins in three hyperthermoacidophiles, i.e., Sulfolobus solfataricus, S. acidocaldarius and S. tokodaii, indicates that only few proteins are freely secreted into the growth medium and that the majority originates from cell envelope bound forms. In S. acidocaldarius both cell-associated and secreted α-amylase activities are detected. Inactivation of the amyA gene resulted in a complete loss of activity, suggesting that the same protein is responsible for the a-amylase activity at both locations. It is concluded that protein secretion in Sulfolobus is a limited process, and it is suggested that the S-layer may act as a barrier for the free diffusion of folded proteins into the medium

Macromolecular Fingerprinting of Sulfolobus Species in Biofilm: A Transcriptomic and Proteomic Approach Combined with Spectroscopic Analysis

Microorganisms in nature often live in surfaceassociated sessile communities, encased in a self-produced matrix, referred to as biofilms. Biofilms have been well studied in bacteria but in a limited way for archaea. We have recently characterized biofilm formation in three closely related hyperthermophilic crenarchaeotes: Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, S. solfataricus, and S. tokodaii. These strains form different communities ranging from simple carpet structures in S. solfataricus to high density tower-like structures in S. acidocaldarius under static condition. Here, we combine spectroscopic, proteomic, and transcriptomic analyses to describe physiological and regulatory features associated with biofilms. Spectroscopic analysis reveals that in comparison to planktonic life-style, biofilm life-style has distinctive influence on the physiology of each Sulfolobus spp. Proteomic and transcriptomic data show that biofilm-forming life-style is strain specific (eg ca. 15% of the S. acidocaldarius genes were differently expressed, S. solfataricus and S. tokodaii had ∼3.4 and ∼1%, respectively). The -omic data showed that regulated ORFs were widely distributed in basic cellular functions, including surface modifications. Several regulated genes are common to biofilm-forming cells in all three species. One of the most striking common response genes include putative Lrs14-like transcriptional regulators, indicating their possible roles as a key regulatory factor in biofilm development

Real-Time Implementation of G.723.1 Speech Coder Using TMS320VC5402 DSP Chip

This paper presents a full duplex, real time implementation of ITU-T G.723.1 [7,8] speech coder using the TMS320C5402 DSP chip which is based on a 16 bit fixed-point architecture. An optimization method is proposed in order to reduce the total necessary cycle time consumed in real-time implementation. The Multi-Pulse Maximum Likelihood Quantization (MP-MLQ) excitation search block which is the most computation-intensive block in the coder is restructured to reduce the algorithmic redundancy. In addition, efficient filtering methods and memory management are used for further optimization. The bit-exact verification with the ITU test vectors and performance evaluation aspects are also discussed in this paper

Predicting Factors about Drug abuse among Students: an Application of Theory of Planned Behavior

Introduction: Drug abuse and addiction is expanding and is not restricted to a specific social class and age in Iran. Students as a talented and chosen group and are community creators in country. Therefore detection of related factors on the prevention of drug abuse in these people is necessary. One of the most effective and comprehensive explanation of the relationship between attitudes and behavior is Theory of Planned Behavior. This study was conducted by aimed to determine predictors of drug abuse in Yazd University of Medical Sciences students, based on the theory of planned behavior. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed by simple randomized sampling among 120 students of Yazd University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tool was a researcher made questionnaire in self report, consisted of two parts, 31 demographic and background questions and items relating to the theory of planned behavior consisted, attitude 10 items (α=0.83) score range 10-50, subjective norms 4 items (α=0.75) score range 4-20, perceived behavioral control 2 items (α=0.81) scores range 2-10 and behavioral intention 4 items (α=0.89) score range was 4-20. Data were analyzed by SPSS-18 and with the help of descriptive statistics and analytical tests such as independent T-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis at α=0.05. Results: The average age of participants was 23.49 ±3.27 with range of 18-35 years. 73.3 percent were female and 26.7 percent were male. 8.3 percent had smoking history and 6.7 percent had a history of drug abuse. The attitude score mean respectively were 24.8±6.15, subjective norms  11.10±2.52, perceived behavioral control 6.85±1.86, and behavioral intention 10.95±3.35. Women attitudes (p=0.016) and behavioral intention (p=0.013) in substance use were more positive than men. Married subjective norms (p=0.04) behavioral intention (p=0.042) in substance use were higher than single. Attitudes, subjective norms and behavioral intention had a direct significant relationship and with perceived behavioral control had an inverse significant relationship. Attitudes and subjective norms were predicted respectively 35 and 39 percent of the variance participants' behavioral intentions regarding drug abuse. Conclusion: Attitudes, Persuasive subjective norms, positive behavioral intention toward drug abuse were in middle level and perceived behavioral control in the absence of drug abuse was in the upper-middle level among the students. Considering that attitude and subjective norms were good predictors on behavioral intention, Therefore, the implementation of a training program tailored to the theory, is emphasized

Investigating impact of motor oil quality on vehicles engine induced noise level

Introduction: Vehicle engine id one of the main sources of noise which its level is influenced by various parameters. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of motor oils quality before and after oil change on the variability of vehicle engine induced noise level. In this study it is tried to follow-up the efficacy of motor oil quality on engines sound level. Material and Method: First, engine noise of 94 vehicles were recorded for 30 seconds before and after oil change and all the vehicles technical information including mileage, type of motor oil, and type of vehicle were registered. Following, the recorded noises were calibrated in semi-anechoic chamber and the sound pressure levels were measured with A and C-weighting network and main octav bands, using a sound level meters. The obtained results analyzed using SPSS software version 17. Results: The effects of motor oil quality on different noise levels of engines were determined and a significant reduction in noise level of vehicles engine was observed. Investigation of the relationship between mileage and motor oil quality on various engines sound level manifested that vehicles with mileage ranged 100000-150000 miles had significant reduction in their sound pressure levels in comparison with other vehicles. Conclusion: The results revealed that engine oil is among factors reducing the vehicle engine induced noise level. Moreover, the engine oil type and the vehicle mileage are key variables which determine the impact of engine oil quality on reduction of the sound level of vehicles engine

Economic and environmental analysis of plastics pyrolysis after secondary sortation of mixed plastic waste

Plastic usage has quickly grown in recent years as plastics have become an essential material in everyday life. Unfortunately, recycling rates have not matched the increased growth, with the majority of waste plastic currently landfilled in the United States. New chemical recycling technologies, i.e. pyrolysis, are needed to increase the recycling rates of waste plastics. However, pyrolysis is challenged with bridging of feed into the hot reactor and in the high cost of waste plastic feedstock. In this work a novel liquid-fed pyrolysis process, designed to eliminate bridging, was modeled through process simulation and assessed over a range of processing conditions. A secondary sortation of inexpensive mixed plastic waste from material recovery facilities provided a low-cost feedstock (PE, PP) for pyrolysis. A techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment found favorable economic and environmental results for pyrolysis oil when compared to fossil naphtha ($561/t, 0.52 kg CO2 eq./kg). A sensitivity analysis found the economic results most responsive to waste plastics feedstock costs, pyrolysis gas sales, operating capacity, and waste disposal costs. Furthermore, it is recommended to recover and sell sorted PET from the mixed plastic bale and implement heat integration in pyrolysis, which in our study achieved lower minimum selling price and greenhouse gas emissions for pyrolysis oil then for fossil naphtha