Pulp and paper mills generate large amounts of waste organic matter that may be converted to renewable energy in form of methane. The anaerobic treatment of mill wastewater is widely accepted ...however, usually only applied to few selected streams. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rates in full-scale reactors range between 30 and 90%, and methane yields are 0.30-0.40 m(3) kg(-1) COD removed. Highest COD removal rates are achieved with condensate streams from chemical pulping (75-90%) and paper mill effluents (60-80%). Numerous laboratory and pilot-scale studies have shown that, contrary to common perception, most other mill effluents are also to some extent anaerobically treatable. Even for difficult-to-digest streams such as bleaching effluents COD removal rates range between 15 and 90%, depending on the extent of dilution prior to anaerobic treatment, and the applied experimental setting. Co-digestion of different streams containing diverse substrate can level out and diminish toxicity, and may lead to a more robust microbial community. Furthermore, the microbial population has the ability to become acclimated and adapted to adverse conditions. Stress situations such as toxic shock loads or temporary organic overloading may be tolerated by an adapted community, whereas they could lead to process disturbance with an un-adapted community. Therefore, anaerobic treatment of wastewater containing elevated levels of inhibitors or toxicants should be initiated by an acclimation/adaptation period that can last between a few weeks and several months. In order to gain more insight into the underlying processes of microbial acclimation/adaptation and co-digestion, future research should focus on the relationship between wastewater composition, reactor operation and microbial community dynamics. The potential for engineering and managing the microbial resource is still largely untapped. Unlike in wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion of mill biosludge (waste activated sludge) and primary sludge is still in its infancy. Current research is mainly focused on developing efficient pretreatment methods that enable fast hydrolysis of complex organic matter, shorter sludge residence times and as a consequence, smaller sludge digesters. Previous experimental studies indicate that the anaerobic digestibility of non-pretreated biosludge from pulp and paper mills varies widely, with volatile solids (VS) removal rates of 21-55% and specific methane yields ranging between 40 and 200 mL g(-1) VS fed. Pretreatment can increase the digestibility to some extent, however in almost all reported cases, the specific methane yield of pretreated biosludge did not exceed 200 mL g(-1) VS fed. Increases in specific methane yield mostly range between 0 and 90% compared to non-pretreated biosludge, whereas larger improvements were usually achieved with more difficult-to-digest biosludge. Thermal treatment and microwave treatment are two of the more effective methods. The heat required for the elevated temperatures applied in both methods may be provided from surplus heat that is often available at pulp and paper mills. Given the large variability in specific methane yield of non-pretreated biosludge, future research should focus on the links between anaerobic digestibility and sludge properties. Research should also involve mill-derived primary sludge. Although biosludge has been the main target in previous studies, primary sludge often constitutes the bulk of mill-generated sludge, and co-digestion of a mixture between both types of sludge may become practical. The few laboratory studies that have included mill primary sludge indicate that, similar to biosludge, the digestibility can range widely. Long-term studies should be conducted to explore the potential of microbial adaptation to lignocellulosic material which can constitute more than half of the organic matter in pulp and paper mill sludge.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
This follow-up study of children who were enrolled in a randomized trial of hypothermia for perinatal asphyxial encephalopathy showed that at the age of 6 to 7 years, the hypothermia group had a ...higher rate of survival with an IQ score of 85 or more than the control group.
Perinatal asphyxial encephalopathy is associated with a high risk of death or early neurodevelopmental impairment. Among survivors, cerebral palsy, functional disability, and cognitive impairment often develop later in childhood. The cost of this condition to patients, their families, and society is high.
In several randomized, controlled trials involving infants with clear evidence of asphyxial encephalopathy, moderate hypothermia (33 to 34°C) for 72 hours, initiated within 6 hours after delivery, has been shown to reduce the risk of death or disability at 18 to 24 months of age and to increase the rate of survival free of disability.
1
The observation that . . .
Background
There has been a recent proliferation in neuroimaging research focusing on brain development in the prenatal, neonatal and very early childhood brain. Early brain injury and preterm birth ...are associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, indicating the importance of this early period for later outcome.
Scope and methodology
Although using a wide range of different methodologies and investigating diverse samples, the common aim of many of these studies has been to both track normative development and investigate deviations in this development to predict behavioural, cognitive and neurological function in childhood. Here we review structural and functional neuroimaging studies investigating the developing brain. We focus on practical and technical complexities of studying this early age range and discuss how neuroimaging techniques have been successfully applied to investigate later neurodevelopmental outcome.
Conclusions
Neuroimaging markers of later outcome still have surprisingly low predictive power and their specificity to individual neurodevelopmental disorders is still under question. However, the field is still young, and substantial challenges to both acquiring and modeling neonatal data are being met.
Read the Commentary on this article at doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12890
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Perinatal brain damage: The term infant Hagberg, Henrik; David Edwards, A; Groenendaal, Floris
Neurobiology of disease,
08/2016, Volume:
92, Issue:
Pt A
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract Perinatal brain injury at term is common and often manifests with neonatal encephalopathy including seizures. The most common aetiologies are hypoxic–ischaemic encephalopathy, intracranial ...haemorrhage and neonatal stroke. Besides clinical and biochemical assessment the diagnostic evaluation rely mostly on EEG and neuroimaging including cranial ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. The mechanisms underlying hypoxic–ischaemic brain injury are only partly understood but include excitotoxicity, mitochondrial perturbation, necrosis/apoptosis and inflammation. Neuroprotective treatment of newborns suffering from hypoxic–ischaemic encephalopathy with hypothermia has proven effective and has been introduced as a clinical routine. Ongoing studies are exploring various add-on therapies including erythropoietin, xenon, topiramate, melatonin and stem cells.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Testosterone and cortisol figure prominently in the research literature having to do with human competition. In this review, we track the history of this literature, concentrating particularly on ...major theoretical and empirical contributions, and provide commentary on what we see as important unresolved issues. In men and women, athletic competition is typically associated with an increase in testosterone (T) and cortisol (C). Hormone changes in response to non-athletic competition are less predictable. Person (e.g., power motivation, mood, aggressiveness, social anxiety, sex, and baseline levels of T and C) and context (e.g., whether a competition is won or lost, the closeness of the competition, whether the outcome is perceived as being influenced by ability vs. chance, provocations) factors can influence hormone responses to competition. From early on, studies pointed to a positive relationship between T and dominance motivation/status striving. Recent research, however, suggests that this relationship only holds for individuals with low levels of C – this is the core idea of the dual-hormone hypothesis, and it is certain that the broadest applications of the hypothesis have not yet been realized. Individuals differ with respect to the extent to which they embrace competition, but the hormonal correlates of competitiveness remain largely unexplored. Although rapid increases in both T and C associated with competition are likely adaptive, we still know very little about the psychological benefits of these hormonal changes. Administration studies have and will continue to contribute to this inquiry. We close with a discussion of what, we think, are important methodological and mechanistic issues for future research.
•A review of the history and research surrounding the testosterone and cortisol response to social competition in humans•Theoretical and empirical contributions from studies of athletic and non-athletic/laboratory competition are included•Person and context factors that impact the hormonal response to competition are considered•Methodological and mechanistic issues within the literature are discussed
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
On a global scale demand for the products of the extractive industries is ever increasing. Extraction of the targeted resource results in the concurrent production of a significant volume of waste ...material, including tailings, which are mixtures of crushed rock and processing fluids from mills, washeries or concentrators that remain after the extraction of economic metals, minerals, mineral fuels or coal. The volume of tailings is normally far in excess of the liberated resource, and the tailings often contain potentially hazardous contaminants. A priority for a reasonable and responsible mining organization must be to proactively isolate the tailings so as to forestall them from entering groundwaters, rivers, lakes and the wind. There is ample evidence that, should such tailings enter these environments they may contaminate food chains and drinking water. Furthermore, the tailings undergo physical and chemical change after they have been deposited. The chemical changes are most often a function of exposure to atmospheric oxidation and tends to make previously, perhaps safely held contaminants mobile and available. If the tailings are stored under water, contact with the atmosphere is substantially reduced, thereby forestalling oxygen-mediated chemical change. It is therefore accepted practice for tailings to be stored in isolated impoundments under water and behind dams. However, these dams frequently fail, releasing enormous quantities of tailings into river catchments. These accidents pose a serious threat to animal and human health and are of concern for extractive industries and the wider community. It is therefore of importance to understand the nature of the material held within these dams, what best safety practice is for these structures and, should the worst happen, what adverse effects such accidents might have on the wider environment and how these might be mitigated. This paper reviews these factors, covering the characteristics, types and magnitudes, environmental impacts, and remediation of mine tailings dam failures.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Abstract
Motivation
Currently there are no tools specifically designed for annotating genes in phages. Several tools are available that have been adapted to run on phage genomes, but due to their ...underlying design, they are unable to capture the full complexity of phage genomes. Phages have adapted their genomes to be extremely compact, having adjacent genes that overlap and genes completely inside of other longer genes. This non-delineated genome structure makes it difficult for gene prediction using the currently available gene annotators. Here we present PHANOTATE, a novel method for gene calling specifically designed for phage genomes. Although the compact nature of genes in phages is a problem for current gene annotators, we exploit this property by treating a phage genome as a network of paths: where open reading frames are favorable, and overlaps and gaps are less favorable, but still possible. We represent this network of connections as a weighted graph, and use dynamic programing to find the optimal path.
Results
We compare PHANOTATE to other gene callers by annotating a set of 2133 complete phage genomes from GenBank, using PHANOTATE and the three most popular gene callers. We found that the four programs agree on 82% of the total predicted genes, with PHANOTATE predicting more genes than the other three. We searched for these extra genes in both GenBank’s non-redundant protein database and all of the metagenomes in the sequence read archive, and found that they are present at levels that suggest that these are functional protein-coding genes.
Availability and implementation
https://github.com/deprekate/PHANOTATE
Supplementary information
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Patients undergoing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) often experience anxiety and sometimes distress prior to and during scanning. Here a full MRI compatible virtual reality (VR) system is described ...and tested with the aim of creating a radically different experience. Potential benefits could accrue from the strong sense of immersion that can be created with VR, which could create sense experiences designed to avoid the perception of being enclosed and could also provide new modes of diversion and interaction that could make even lengthy MRI examinations much less challenging. Most current VR systems rely on head mounted displays combined with head motion tracking to achieve and maintain a visceral sense of a tangible virtual world, but this technology and approach encourages physical motion, which would be unacceptable and could be physically incompatible for MRI. The proposed VR system uses gaze tracking to control and interact with a virtual world. MRI compatible cameras are used to allow real time eye tracking and robust gaze tracking is achieved through an adaptive calibration strategy in which each successive VR interaction initiated by the subject updates the gaze estimation model. A dedicated VR framework has been developed including a rich virtual world and gaze-controlled game content. To aid in achieving immersive experiences physical sensations, including noise, vibration and proprioception associated with patient table movements, have been made congruent with the presented virtual scene. A live video link allows subject-carer interaction, projecting a supportive presence into the virtual world.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Metagenomics has changed the face of virus discovery by enabling the accurate identification of viral genome sequences without requiring isolation of the viruses. As a result, metagenomic virus ...discovery leaves the first and most fundamental question about any novel virus unanswered: What host does the virus infect? The diversity of the global virosphere and the volumes of data obtained in metagenomic sequencing projects demand computational tools for virus–host prediction. We focus on bacteriophages (phages, viruses that infect bacteria), the most abundant and diverse group of viruses found in environmental metagenomes. By analyzing 820 phages with annotated hosts, we review and assess the predictive power of in silico phage–host signals. Sequence homology approaches are the most effective at identifying known phage–host pairs. Compositional and abundance-based methods contain significant signal for phage–host classification, providing opportunities for analyzing the unknowns in viral metagenomes. Together, these computational approaches further our knowledge of the interactions between phages and their hosts. Importantly, we find that all reviewed signals significantly link phages to their hosts, illustrating how current knowledge and insights about the interaction mechanisms and ecology of coevolving phages and bacteria can be exploited to predict phage–host relationships, with potential relevance for medical and industrial applications.
New viruses infecting bacteria are increasingly being discovered in many environments through sequence-based explorations. To understand their role in microbial ecosystems, computational tools are indispensable to prioritize and guide experimental efforts. This review assesses and discusses a range of bioinformatic approaches to predict bacteriophage–host relationships when all that is known is their genome sequence.
Graphical Abstract Figure.
New viruses infecting bacteria are increasingly being discovered in many environments through sequence-based explorations. To understand their role in microbial ecosystems, computational tools are indispensable to prioritize and guide experimental efforts. This review assesses and discusses a range of bioinformatic approaches to predict bacteriophage–host relationships when all that is known is their genome sequence.
Since first described in the early 1900s, Alzheimer's disease (AD) has risen exponentially in prevalence and concern. Research still drives to understand the etiology and pathogenesis of this disease ...and what risk factors can attribute to AD. With a majority of AD cases being of sporadic origin, the increasing exponential growth of an aged population and a lack of treatment, it is imperative to discover an easy accessible preventative method for AD. Some risk factors can increase the propensity of AD such as aging, sex, and genetics. Moreover, there are also modifiable risk factors-in terms of treatable medical conditions and lifestyle choices-that play a role in developing AD. These risk factors have their own biological mechanisms that may contribute to AD etiology and pathological consequences. In this review article, we will discuss modifiable risk factors and discuss the current literature of how each of these factors interplay into AD development and progression and if strategically analyzed and treated, could aid in protection against this neurodegenerative disease.
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