scholarly journals Mineral Recovery Enhanced Desalination (MRED) process: An innovative technology for desalinating hard brackish water

Desalination ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 496 ◽  
pp. 114761
Author(s):  
Bruce M. Thomson ◽  
Sugam Tandukar ◽  
Ayush Shahi ◽  
Carson Odell Lee ◽  
Kerry J. Howe
Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Karien Hill ◽  
Shawn Somerset ◽  
Ralf Schwarzer ◽  
Carina Chan

Abstract. Background: The public health sector has advocated for more innovative, technology-based, suicide prevention education for the community, to improve their ability to detect and respond to suicide risk. Emerging evidence suggests addressing the bystander effect through the Bystander Intervention Model (BIM) in education material may have potential for suicide prevention. Aims: The current study aimed to assess whether BIM-informed tools can lead to improved readiness, confidence and intent in the community to detect and respond to suicide risk in others. Method: A sample of 281 adults recruited from the community participated in a randomized controlled trial comprising a factsheet designed according to the BIM (intervention group) and a standard factsheet about suicide and mental health (control group). Participants' self-reported detecting and responding to suicide risk readiness, confidence, and intent when presented with a suicidal peer was tested pre- and postintervention and compared across time and between groups. Results: The intervention group had significantly higher levels of detecting and responding to suicide risk readiness, confidence, and intent than the control group at postintervention (all p < .001) with moderate-to-large effect sizes. Limitations: The study was limited by a homogenous sample, too low numbers at follow-up to report, and self-report data only. Conclusion: This study demonstrates BIM-informed suicide prevention training may enhance the community's intervention readiness, confidence, and intent better than current standard material. Further testing in this area is recommended. While results were statistically significant, clinical significance requires further exploration.


EMJ Radiology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Pesapane

Radiomics is a science that investigates a large number of features from medical images using data-characterisation algorithms, with the aim to analyse disease characteristics that are indistinguishable to the naked eye. Radiogenomics attempts to establish and examine the relationship between tumour genomic characteristics and their radiologic appearance. Although there is certainly a lot to learn from these relationships, one could ask the question: what is the practical significance of radiogenomic discoveries? This increasing interest in such applications inevitably raises numerous legal and ethical questions. In an environment such as the technology field, which changes quickly and unpredictably, regulations need to be timely in order to be relevant.  In this paper, issues that must be solved to make the future applications of this innovative technology safe and useful are analysed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 489-500
Author(s):  
Andrea Valente ◽  
◽  
David Atkinson ◽  

This study aimed to investigate the conditions in which Bitcoin has developed as a leading cryptocurrency and, according to Nakamoto (2008), could become an instrument for everyday payments around the world. In comparison to other digital payment solutions, Bitcoin is based on a peer-to-peer electronic cash system using “the blockchain”. This innovative technology allows for decentralised storage and movement of currency in a fully anonymous way, introducing advantageous methods for encrypted security and faster transactions (Hagiu & Beach, 2014). Scepticism regards Bitcoin’s foundation, energy consumption and price volatility, however, did not take long to arise (Holthaus, 2017). Ten years from its white paper release, Bitcoin is further supported by the same drivers which could sustain its growth as the future of digital payments (Russo, 2018). In order to investigate the key drivers and feasibility of acceptance, a London based survey was used to understand the desirability of Bitcoin as a day-to-day tool for digital payments. Additionally, this research analysed Bitcoin’s stakeholders and forecast drivers of sustainability for its application to become the future of the payment industry. A space which relies on policies that involve multiple layers of society, governments, regulators and tech-firms, all on a global scale. The findings confirmed how the increasing lack of trust of political and financial institutions, coupled with the increasing cases of data-breaches by tech-firms, encouraged over 70% of respondents to consider more decentralised and anonymous methods for their day-to-day actions; like payments. Policy makers need to cope with societies increasingly separating politically but gathering together digitally (LBS, 2017). For Bitcoin to truly establish itself as a global digital payment solution, key stakeholder acceptance must converge alongside the introduction of more robust regulation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
A.N. Davydenko ◽  
◽  
A.F. Kamyshatsky ◽  
A.K. Sudakov ◽  
◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Raveesha P ◽  
K. E. Prakash ◽  
B. T. Suresh Babu

The salt water mixes with fresh water and forms brackish water. The brackish water contains some quantity of salt, but not equal to sea water. Salinity determines the geographic distribution of the number of marshes found in estuary. Hence salinity is a very important environmental factor in estuary system. Sand is one major natural aggregate, required in construction industry mainly for the manufacture of concrete. The availability of good river sand is reduced due to salinity. The quality of sand available from estuarine regions is adversely affected due to this reason. It is the responsibility of engineers to check the quality of sand and its strength parameters before using it for any construction purpose. Presence of salt content in natural aggregates or manufactured aggregates is the cause for corrosion in steel. In this study the amount of salinity present in estuary sand was determined. Three different methods were used to determine the salinity in different seasonal variations. The sand sample collected nearer to the sea was found to be high in salinity in all methods.  It can be concluded that care should be taken before we use estuary sand as a construction material due to the presence of salinity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 279-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Bakaria ◽  
S. Belhaoues ◽  
N. Djebbari ◽  
M. Tahri ◽  
I. Ladjama ◽  
...  

Abstract The aim of the study was to examine metazoans parasite communities of European eels (Anguilla anguilla) in freshwater (Tonga Lake) and brackish water (El Mellah lagoon) in the northeast of Algeria. Six parasite taxa were collected: one monogenean, Pseudodactylogyrus sp.; two crustaceans, Ergasilus sp. and Argulus foliaceus; two nematodes, Cucullanus sp. and Anguillicola crassus; one cestode, Bothriocephalus claviceps. Th e most prevalent parasite taxa in freshwater were Pseudodactylogyrus sp., A. crassus and Bothriocephalus claviceps; whereas in the brackish water, eels were infected mainly with A. crassus. Th e characteristics of the parasite component community structure revealed low parasite species diversity and high dominance values in eels from the two localities. Both communities were dominated by a single parasite species: Tonga eels by the monogenean Pseudodactylogyrus sp. and El Mellah lagoon eels by the nematode A. crassus, verified by high Berger-Parker dominance values of 0.76 and 0.87 respectively.


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