We made the first ever successful effort in India to detect the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 viruses to understand the capability and application of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) surveillance ...in India. Sampling was carried out on 8 and 27 May 2020 at the Old Pirana Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) at Ahmedabad, Gujarat that receives effluent from Civil Hospital treating COVID-19 patients. All three, i.e. ORF1ab, N and S genes of SARS-CoV-2, were found in the influent with no genes detected in effluent collected on 8 and 27 May 2020. Increase in SARS-CoV-2 genetic loading in the wastewater between 8 and 27 May 2020 samples concurred with corresponding increase in the number of active COVID-19 patients in the city. The number of gene copies was comparable to that reported in untreated wastewaters of Australia, China and Turkey and lower than that of the USA, France and Spain. However, temporal changes in SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations need to be substantiated further from the perspectives of daily and short-term changes of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater through long-term monitoring. The study results SARS-CoV-2 will assist concerned authorities and policymakers to formulate and/or upgrade COVID-19 surveillance to have a more explicit picture of the pandemic curve. While infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 through the excreted viral genetic material in the aquatic environment is still being debated, the presence and detection of genes in wastewater systems makes a strong case for the environmental surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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•First ever report of the presence of gene of SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater in India.•CT value is explicitly indicative of the increase of COVID-19 patient in the vicinity.•All three i.e. ORF1ab, N and S genes of SARS-CoV-2 were discerned in the influents.•None of three genes were spotted in the effluent collected on 8 and 27 May 2020.•Increase in the SARS-CoV-2 genetic loading concurred with active COVID-19 patient.
In recent years, the application of biochar has increased significantly for sustainable and efficient carbon sequestration, improving soil quality and enhancement of plant growth. The biochar is ...mostly made from agricultural residues and waste materials. The objective of this study was to assess the changes in physicochemical, surface morphology, and mineral composition of different biochars with varying pyrolysis temperature. Eighteen different types of biochars were prepared through pyrolysis of feedstock at four different temperatures (350 °C, 450 °C, 550 °C and 650 °C). The feedstock used for the preparation of biochar were organic waste materials such as pine saw dust, rice husk, food waste, poultry litter and paper sludge. Pyrolysis temperatures and feedstock types significantly influenced biochar properties. For instance, pH of poultry litter and paper sludge biochar has increased from 6.2 to 10.3, BET surface area of saw dust and rice husk increased from 3.39 to 443.79 m2 g−1 and 11.61 to 280.97 m2 g−1 while cation exchange capacity value decreased with the increase in temperature. Paper sludge and poultry litter had the highest ash content value (57.20 ± 0.02 and 44.10 ± 0.02) whereas saw dust, rice husk and food waste biochar have highest fixed carbon value (55.31 ± 0.15, 48.47 ± 0.31 and 58.85 ± 0.22) at 650 °C. Degree of aromaticity increased and polarity reduced significantly with pyrolysis temperature. Rice husk and saw dust biochar prepared at higher temperature were more stable among all and thus recalcitrant in nature. X-ray diffraction results revealed mineral like quartz in saw dust and poultry litter biochar, sylvite, potassium iodate, calcium sulfide in food waste biochar and calcium carbonate in paper sludge biochar. Scanning Electron Microscopy showed increase in number of pores as well as pore size specially for the saw dust, and rice husk biochar. This study suggested that biochar prepared at higher temperature (550 °C and 650 °C) are more suitable for carbon sequestration and agricultural purpose.
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•Conversion of four different waste feedstocks into biochar with varying temperature.•Higher temperature biochar tends to have half-life greater than that of the lower temperature.•Heavy metals increase with the pyrolysis temperature except metals with low boiling point.•BET surface area significantly increases with the pyrolysis temperature.
•Four new machine learning techniques explored for pan evaporation estimation.•The study area was the sub-tropical Karso watershed in India.•Traditional Hargreaves and Samani, and Stephens–Stewart ...method, were also explored.•Fuzzy Logic and LS-SVR approaches were found to be the most accurate methods.
This paper investigates the abilities of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Least Squares – Support Vector Regression (LS-SVR), Fuzzy Logic, and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) techniques to improve the accuracy of daily pan evaporation estimation in sub-tropical climates. Meteorological data from the Karso watershed in India (consisting of 3801 daily records from the year 2000 to 2010) were used to develop and test the models for daily pan evaporation estimation. The measured meteorological variables include daily observations of rainfall, minimum and maximum air temperatures, minimum and maximum humidity, and sunshine hours. Prior to model development, the Gamma Test (GT) was used to derive estimates of the noise variance for each input–output set in order to identify the most useful predictors for use in the machine learning approaches used in this study. The ANN models consisted of feed forward backpropagation (FFBP) models with Bayesian Regularization (BR), along with the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm. A comparison was made between the estimates provided by the ANN, LS-SVR, Fuzzy Logic, and ANFIS models. The empirical Hargreaves and Samani method (HGS), as well as the Stephens–Stewart (SS) method, were also considered for comparison with the newer machine learning methods. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Correlation Coefficient (CORR) were the statistical performance indices that were used to evaluate the accuracy of the various models. Based on the comparison, it was found that the Fuzzy Logic and LS-SVR approaches can be employed successfully in modeling the daily evaporation process from the available climatic data. In addition, results showed that the machine learning models outperform the traditional HGS and SS empirical methods.
Background
So far, macroecological studies in the Himalaya have mostly concentrated on spatial variation of overall species richness along the elevational gradient. Very few studies have attempted to ...document the difference in elevational richness patterns of native and exotic species. In this study, this knowledge gap is addressed by integrating data on phylogeny and elevational distribution of species to identify the variation in species richness, phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic structure of exotic and native plant species along an elevational gradient in the Himalaya.
Results
Species distribution patterns for exotic and native species differed; exotics tended to show maximum species richness at low elevations while natives tended to predominate at mid-elevations. Native species assemblages showed higher phylogenetic diversity than the exotic species assemblages over the entire elevational gradient in the Himalaya. In terms of phylogenetic structure, exotic species assemblages showed majorly phylogenetic clustering while native species assemblages were characterized by phylogenetic overdispersion over the entire gradient.
Conclusions
The findings of this study indicate that areas with high native species richness and phylogenetic diversity are less receptive to exotic species and vice versa in the Himalaya. Species assemblages with high native phylogenetic overdispersion are less receptive to exotic species than the phylogenetically clustered assemblages. Different ecological processes (ecological filtering in case of exotics and resource and niche competition in case of natives) may govern the distribution of exotic and native species along the elevational gradient in the Himalaya.
The current review explores the potential application of algal biomass for the production of biofuels and bio-based products. The variety of processes and pathways through which bio-valorization of ...algal biomass can be performed are described in this review. Various lipid extraction techniques from algal biomass along with transesterification reactions for biodiesel production are briefly discussed. Processes such as the pretreatment and saccharification of algal biomass, fermentation, gasification, pyrolysis, hydrothermal liquefaction, and anaerobic digestion for the production of biohydrogen, bio-oils, biomethane, biochar (BC), and various bio-based products are reviewed in detail. The biorefinery model and its collaborative approach with various processes are highlighted for the production of eco-friendly, sustainable, and cost-effective biofuels and value-added products. The authors also discuss opportunities and challenges related to bio-valorization of algal biomass and use their own perspective regarding the processes involved in production and the feasibility to make algal research a reality for the production of biofuels and bio-based products in a sustainable manner.
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•Critical analysis of pathways involves in bio-valorization of algal biomass.•Mass of 1 kg oils extracted from algal biomass can produce 1 kg biodiesel.•The yields of biochar per unit dry weight of algal biomass are in the range of 8.1–62.4%.•The foremost challenges in production of 3rd generation biofuel are its non-cost effectiveness.
Nitrate is an important pollutant found in environmental samples. Nitrate and nitrite pose various environmental as well as health hazards. Different methods of determining nitrate in various ...environmental samples developed during previous years include spectrophotometric, chemiluminescence, electrochemical detection, chromatographic, capillary electrophoretic, spectrofluorimetric methods. Out of these, methods based on spectroscopic detection of nitrate have been discussed in this review article due to their easy availability, high sensitivity, low detection limit, economical and facile nature. Methods based on spectrophotometry, Raman Spectroscopy, IR and FTIR Spectroscopy, atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), fluorescence spectroscopy, chemiluminescence, mass spectroscopy, molecular emission cavity analysis (MECA), electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometry (EPR) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) have been reviewed. The basic principle, detection limits, detection range, RSD%, sample throughput/h, advantages and disadvantages have been discussed.
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•Spectroscopic methods for detection of nitrate and nitrite have been reviewed.•Their basic principle, advantages and disadvantages have been mentioned.•Detection limits, detection range, RSD%, sample throughput/h have been tabulated.•Literature survey of more than 200 research papers has been presented.
Laser-graphitization offers a new approach to obtaining high-quality 3D graphene films simply and efficiently. Over the years this method was developed to include different carbonaceous precursors ...and irradiation parameters. Precarbonization is a step in the synthesis where the precursors are annealed at high temperatures under an inert atmosphere to increase the carbon content in the samples prior to the laser reaction. Some studies report this step while others do not, thus its necessity and beneficially have to be evaluated. In this study, we compare the laser products of as-prepared and precarbonized carbon nanodots (CNDs). The study investigates the samples from the initial synthesis step of microwave-assisted formation of CNDs, through separation of the CNDs by particle size, the precarbonization step conducted at different temperatures, to the final 3D graphene films products. By analyzing the chemical structure and graphitization level of the intermediates, we could realize the chemical characteristics responsible for successful laser-graphitization. We have found that precarbonization indeed leads to improved graphitic products, only to a certain extent. The best graphitization level is achieved when the CNDs were precarbonized to 300 °C obtaining ID/IG ratio = 0.44 as compared to 1.08 when as-prepared CNDs are used. On the other hand, when annealed to 400 °C the laser produces more defected graphene films (ID/IG ratio = 0.83). Moreover, both the surface chemistry and the core structure of the CNDs affect the final results. A careful examination of the surface chemistry reveals the coverage of oxygen- and nitrogen-containing functional groups required for the optimal thermochemical reaction.
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In order to benefit the public, community workers and scientific community, we hereby present a chronicle of SARS-CoV-2 that leads to the unseen precedent of social distancing and lockdown owing to ...coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Information on this life-threatening pandemic of COVID-19 is sparse and discrete; and the urgency is such that the dissemination of information is increasing with numerous daily publications on the topic. Therefore, we developed a comprehensive review on various aspects of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. We scientifically compiled published research, news, and reports from various sources to comprehend and summarize the information and findings on Coronaviruses. The review explicitly covers the aspects like genome and pedigree of SARS-CoV-2; epidemiology, prognosis, pathogenesis, symptoms and diagnosis of COVID-19 in order to catalog the right information on transmission route, and influence of environmental factors on virus transmissions, for the robust understanding of right strategical steps for proper COVID-19 management. We have explicitly highlighted several useful information and facts like: i) No established relationship between progression of SARS-CoV-2 with temperature, humidity and/or both, ii) The underlying mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 is not fully understood, iii) Respiratory droplet size determines drop and airborne-based transmission, iv) Prognosis of COVID-19 can be done by its effects on various body organs, v) Infection can be stopped by restricting the binding of S protein and AE2, vi) Hydroxychloroquine is believed to be better than chloroquine for COVID-19, vii) Ivermectin with Vero-hSLAM cells is able to reduce infection by ~5000 time within 2 days, and viii) Nafamostat mesylate can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 S protein-initiated membrane fusion. We have also suggested future research perspectives, challenges and scope.
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•Phylogeny of the SARS-CoV-2 is remarkably similar to SARS of pangolin and/or bat origin.•Transmission depends on respiratory droplet size, environmental condition and immunity.•COVID-19 progression is highly debated for temperature, humidity, and lifestyle dependence.•Infection can be restricted through restricting binding of S protein and AE2.•Increasing neutrophil and lymphocyte ratio (NLR) may give early sign of COVID-19.
Currently microorganisms are best identified using 16S rRNA and 18S rRNA gene sequencing. However, in recent years matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry ...(MALDI-TOF MS) has emerged as a potential tool for microbial identification and diagnosis. During the MALDI-TOF MS process, microbes are identified using either intact cells or cell extracts. The process is rapid, sensitive, and economical in terms of both labor and costs involved. The technology has been readily imbibed by microbiologists who have reported usage of MALDI-TOF MS for a number of purposes like, microbial identification and strain typing, epidemiological studies, detection of biological warfare agents, detection of water- and food-borne pathogens, detection of antibiotic resistance and detection of blood and urinary tract pathogens etc. The limitation of the technology is that identification of new isolates is possible only if the spectral database contains peptide mass fingerprints of the type strains of specific genera/species/subspecies/strains. This review provides an overview of the status and recent applications of mass spectrometry for microbial identification. It also explores the usefulness of this exciting new technology for diagnosis of diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
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