SWOT-SOR Analysis of Activated Carbon-Based Technologies and O3/UV Process as Polishing Treatments for Hospital Effluent

The management and treatment of hospital wastewater are issues of great concern worldwide. Both in the case of a dedicated treatment or co-treatment with urban wastewater, hospital effluent is generally subjected to pre-treatments followed by a biological step. A polishing treatment is suggested to promote (and guarantee) the removal of micropollutants still present and to reduce the total pollutant load released. Activated carbon-based technologies and advanced oxidation processes have been widely investigated from technical and economic viewpoints and applied in many cases. In this study, the potential exploitation of these technologies for the polishing treatment of hospital effluent is investigated by combining a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis with a Strategic Orientation (SOR) analysis. This approach allows a coherent strategy to be extracted from the SWOT-SOR data, increasing the chances of success of each technology. It emerges that both technologies present relevant and sometimes similar strengths and can present opportunities. At the same time, activated carbon-based technologies are more likely to contain the main identified threats than O3/UV technology. The study also finds that, for both technologies, further research and development could improve their potential applications in the treatment of hospital wastewater.

Mining Waste Volume Estimation Using Airborne Lidar Data and Historical Maps: A Case Study of Tailing Piles in Szklary, Lower Silesia

Reliable feasibility analysis of potential exploitation of a mining waste deposit poses a great challenge. One of the most crucial parts of this process is the approximation of the deposit volume. In this case study we propose a novel method of tailing pile volume estimation using open remote sensing and cartographic data. For selected piles, the difference between the proposed and classical approach reach 50% of the pile volume, which is a significant change in the potential value of the deposit.

A Comparative Study on Opto-Thermal Properties of Natural Clay Bricks Incorporating Dredged Sediments

The brick industry is currently facing a shortage of natural resources. Despite this, the demand for construction bricks is progressively increasing. Alternative materials, such as dredged sediments and solid organic waste, have been recently proposed as options to replace natural clay in brick manufacturing. Potential exploitation of dredged sediments in clay bricks is evaluated in this study. The chemical composition of the mixtures and the opto-thermal properties of brick samples, which differed for the dredged sediment content (from 10% to 50% of the clay weight), were investigated. Chemical analyses detected lower concentrations of heavy metals in bricks incorporating dredged sediments (DS). Negligible variations in thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and specific heat were observed by increasing the amount of DS in the mixture. In particular, the thermal conductivity values ranged between 0.45 ± 0.03 W m−1 K−1 (DS-50) and 0.50 ± 0.03 W m−1 K−1 (DS-30). Conversely, the color shift value and spectral reflectance in the infrared field were found directly proportional to the concentration of DS. Using dredged sediments as building material demonstrated to be a solution to the problem of their disposal and the scarcity of raw materials, reducing the global warming score by up to 2.8%.

Combined drought and bark beetle attacks deplete non-structural carbohydrates and promote death of mature pine trees

How carbohydrate reserves change in conifers during drought and bark beetle attacks are poorly understood. We investigated changes in carbohydrate reserves and carbon-dependent terpene defenses in ponderosa pine trees experimentally subjected to two levels of drought stress (via root trenching) and two types of biotic challenge treatments (pheromone-induced bark beetle attacks or inoculations with crushed beetles that include beetle-associated fungi) for two consecutive years. Our results showed that trenching did not influence carbohydrates whereas both biotic challenges reduced amounts of starch and sugars of trees. However, only the trenched-beetle attacked trees depleted carbohydrates and died within the first year of bark beetle attacks. While live trees contained higher carbohydrates than dying trees, amounts of constitutive and induced terpenes produced did not vary between live and beetle-attacked dying trees, respectively. Based on these results we propose that reallocation of carbohydrates to terpenes during the early stages of beetle attacks is limited in drought-stricken trees, and that the combination of biotic and abiotic stress leads to tree death. The process tree death is subsequently aggravated by beetle girdling of phloem, occlusion of vascular tissue by bark beetle-vectored fungi, and potential exploitation of host carbohydrates by beetle symbionts as nutrients.

Metabolomics and lipid profile analysis of Coccomyxa melkonianii SCCA 048

With an unsupervised GC–MS metabolomics approach, polar metabolite changes of the microalgae Coccomyxa melkonianii SCCA 048 grown under standard conditions for seven weeks were studied. C. melkonianii was sampled at the Rio Irvi River, in the mining site of Montevecchio-Ingurtosu (Sardinia, Italy), which is severely contaminated by heavy metals and shows high concentrations of sulfates. The partial-least-square (PLS) analysis of the GC–MS data indicated that growth of C. melkonianii was characterized by an increase of the levels of threonic acid, myo-inositol, malic acid, and fumaric acid. Furthermore, at the sixth week of exponential phase the lipid fingerprint of C. melkonianii was studied by LC-QTOF-MS. C. melkonianii lipid extract characterized through an iterative MS/MS analysis showed the following percent levels: 61.34 ± 0.60% for triacylglycerols (TAG); 11.55 ± 0.09% for diacylglyceryltrimethyl homoserines (DGTS), 11.34 ± 0.10% for sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerols (SQDG) and, 5.29 ± 0.04% for lysodiacylglyceryltrimethyl homoserines (LDGTS). Noteworthy, we were able to annotate different fatty acid ester of hydroxyl fatty acid, such as FAHFA (18:1_20:3), FAHFA (18:2_20:4), FAHFA (18:0_20:2), and FAHFA (18:1_18:0), with relevant biological activity. These approaches can be useful to study the biochemistry of this extremophile algae in the view of its potential exploitation in the phycoremediation of polluted mining areas.

Potential exploitation of Shea press cakes in glycaemia regulation: Inhibition of α-amylase and α-glucosidase by protein and methanolic extracts

Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) tree is integrally used in traditional medicine for the treatment of several health disturbances. Its kernels fat is widely exploited for food, medicinal and cosmetic purposes. Nevertheless germinated kernels are considered as waste, whereas shea germinative power would be very high. Their anti-diabetic ability was evaluated in vitro, in ordre to highlight their pharmacological benefits. Therefore, both proteins (crude, digested and dialysed ones) and hydroalcoholic extracts, were prepared from germinated and ungerminated shea seed press cakes. The anti-diabetic essay was carried out by evaluating extracts inhibiting power on both α-amylase and α-glucosidase activities. Proteins were quantified by spectrophotometry (214 nm). Results revealed that the protein content of the extracts from germinated seed cakes was 450 mg/100 g and that of the extracts from ungerminated shea seed cakes was 410 mg/100 g. The percentage of inhibition of α-amylase by the dialysed extracts of germinated shea seeds, in this case the external dialysate of germinated seed, presented the best rate of inhibition with 30.21 %. Contrary to the percentage of inhibition of α-amylase, the highest rates of inhibition of α-glucosidase were recorded with the crude protein extracts of sprouted seeds (82.02 %) and unsprouted seeds (62.32 %). For methanolic extracts, the highest inhibition of α-amylase and α-glucosidase was recorded by the ungerminated seeds, with 42.61% for α-amylase and 97.47% for α-glucosidase. These results show that protein extracts of shea seed cakes may play a role in blood glucose regulation.

lncRNA PVT1 in the Pathogenesis and Clinical Management of Renal Cell Carcinoma

LncRNA PVT1 (plasmacytoma variant translocation 1) has become a staple of the lncRNA profile in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Common dysregulation in renal tumors outlines the essential role of PVT1 in the development of RCC. There is already a plethora of publications trying to uncover the cellular mechanisms of PVT1-mediated regulation and its potential exploitation in management of RCC. In this review, we summarize the literature focused on PVT1 in RCC and aim to synthesize the current knowledge on its role in the cells of the kidney. Further, we provide an overview of the lncRNA profiling studies that have identified a more or less significant association of PVT1 with the clinical behavior of RCC. Based on our search, we analyzed the 17 scientific papers discussed in this review that provide robust support for the indispensable role of PVT1 in RCC development and future personalized therapy.

Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) Nanocomposites: Effect of Inorganic Nanoparticles Reinforcement on Its Performance and Food Packaging Applications

Poly lactic acid (PLA) is a compostable, as well as recyclable, sustainable, versatile and environmentally friendly alternative, because the monomer of PLA-lactide (LA) is extracted from natural sources. PLA’s techno-functional properties are fairly similar to fossil-based polymers; however, in pristine state, its brittleness and delicacy during processing pose challenges to its potential exploitation in diverse food packaging applications. PLA is, therefore, re-engineered to improve its thermal, rheological, barrier and mechanical properties through nanoparticle (NP) reinforcement. This review summarises the studies on PLA-based nanocomposites (PLA NCs) developed by reinforcing inorganic metal/metallic oxide, graphite and silica-based nanoparticles (NPs) that exhibit remarkable improvement in terms of storage modulus, tensile strength, crystallinity, glass transition temperature (Tg) value, antimicrobial property and a decrease in water vapour and oxygen permeability when compared with the pristine PLA films. This review has also discussed the regulations around the use of metal oxide-based NPs in food packaging, PLA NC biodegradability and their applications in food systems. The industrial acceptance of NCs shows highly promising perspectives for the replacement of traditional petrochemical-based polymers currently being used for food packaging.

Exosomes as Pleiotropic Players in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PC) incidence is rising and due to late diagnosis, combined with unsatisfactory response to current therapeutic approaches, this tumor has an extremely high mortality rate. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying pancreatic carcinogenesis is of paramount importance for rational diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Multiple lines of evidence have showed that exosomes are actively involved in intercellular communication by transferring their cargos of bioactive molecules to recipient cells within the tumor microenvironment and systemically. Intriguingly, exosomes may exert both protumor and antitumor effects, supporting or hampering processes that play a role in the pathogenesis and progression of PC, including shifts in tumor metabolism, proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and chemoresistance. They also have a dual role in PC immunomodulation, exerting immunosuppressive or immune enhancement effects through several mechanisms. PC-derived exosomes also induce systemic metabolic alterations, leading to the onset of diabetes and weight loss. Moreover, exosomes have been described as promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for PC. Their potential application in PC therapy as drug carriers and therapeutic targets is under investigation. In this review, we provide an overview of the multiple roles played by exosomes in PC biology through their specific cargo biomolecules and of their potential exploitation in early diagnosis and treatment of PC.