Pilot-scale adsorption of pharmaceuticals from municipal wastewater effluent using low-cost magnetite-pine bark: Regeneration/enumeration of viable bacteria with a study on their biotoxicity.

A low-cost and renewable magnetite-pine bark (MPB) sorbent was evaluated in continuous-flow systems for the removal of various pharmaceuticals from municipal wastewater effluent following membrane bioreactor (MBR) treatment. A 33-day small-scale column test (bed volume: 791 cm) was conducted using duplicate columns of biochar (BC, Novocarbo) and activated carbon (AC, ColorSorb) as reference for two columns of BC and MPB in order to compare the efficiency of AC and MPB. After the small-scale column test, the pharmaceutical concentrations were generally below the detection limit.

Multiple biochemical properties of the p53 molecule contribute to activation of polymerase iota-dependent DNA damage tolerance.

We have previously reported that p53 decelerates nascent DNA elongation in complex with the translesion synthesis (TLS) polymerase ι (POLι) which triggers a homology-directed DNA damage tolerance (DDT) pathway to bypass obstacles during DNA replication. Here, we demonstrate that this DDT pathway relies on multiple p53 activities, which can be disrupted by TP53 mutations including those frequently found in cancer tissues. We show that the p53-mediated DDT pathway depends on its oligomerization domain (OD), while its regulatory C-terminus is not involved.

Cross-trait analyses with migraine reveal widespread pleiotropy and suggest a vascular component to migraine headache.

Background: Nearly a fifth of the world's population suffer from migraine headache, yet risk factors for this disease are poorly characterized.

Methods: To further elucidate these factors, we conducted a genetic correlation analysis using cross-trait linkage disequilibrium (LD) score regression between migraine headache and 47 traits from the UK Biobank. We then tested for possible causality between these phenotypes and migraine, using Mendelian randomization.

Insight into hospital ward nurses' concerns about patient health and the corresponding Medical Emergency Team nurse response.

Aim: This study aims to understand the concerns of nurses when making MET calls which did not fulfil the vital sign criteria, and the MET nurses subsequent responses to these calls.

Methods: This was a retrospective report-based study. Research material included nursing reports and MET forms related to MET calls made due to nurses' concern.

On-chip integrated vertically aligned carbon nanotube based super- and pseudocapacitors.

On-chip energy storage and management will have transformative impacts in developing advanced electronic platforms with built-in energy needs for operation of integrated circuits driving a microprocessor. Though success in growing stand-alone energy storage elements such as electrochemical capacitors (super and pseusocapacitors) on a variety of substrates is a promising step towards this direction. In this work, on-chip energy storage is demonstrated using architectures of highly aligned vertical carbon nanotubes (CNTs) acting as supercapacitors, capable of providing large device capacitances.

SUBA4: the interactive data analysis centre for Arabidopsis subcellular protein locations.

The SUBcellular location database for Arabidopsis proteins (SUBA4, http://suba.live) is a comprehensive collection of manually curated published data sets of large-scale subcellular proteomics, fluorescent protein visualization, protein-protein interaction (PPI) as well as subcellular targeting calls from 22 prediction programs. SUBA4 contains an additional 35 568 localizations totalling more than 60 000 experimental protein location claims as well as 37 new suborganellar localization categories.

Different Ultimate Factors Define Timing of Breeding in Two Related Species.

Correct reproductive timing is crucial for fitness. Breeding phenology even in similar species can differ due to different selective pressures on the timing of reproduction. These selection pressures define species' responses to warming springs.

Early warning of changing drinking water quality by trend analysis.

Monitoring and control of water treatment plants play an essential role in ensuring high quality drinking water and avoiding health-related problems or economic losses. The most common quality variables, which can be used also for assessing the efficiency of the water treatment process, are turbidity and residual levels of coagulation and disinfection chemicals. In the present study, the trend indices are developed from scaled measurements to detect warning signs of changes in the quality variables of drinking water and some operating condition variables that strongly affect water quality.

Characteristics and settling behaviour of particles from blast furnace flue gas washing.

A lot of particles from iron-making are removed with blast furnace off-gas and routed to the gas cleaning system. As water is used for cleaning the gas, the produced wash water contains a large amount of particles such as valuable Fe and C. However, the presence of zinc prevents recycling.

The Laschamp geomagnetic excursion featured in nitrate record from EPICA-Dome C ice core.

Here we present the first direct comparison of cosmogenic (10)Be and chemical species in the period of 38-45.5 kyr BP spanning the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion from the EPICA-Dome C ice core. A principal component analysis (PCA) allowed to group different components as a function of the main sources, transport and deposition processes affecting the atmospheric aerosol at Dome C.

(1)H NMR-based DS determination of barley starch sulfates prepared in 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride.

The use of natural resources in a development of products and materials is currently increasing. Starch is one of the investigated resources due to its bioavailability, biodegradability, safety and affordability. In this study, native barley starch was sulfated using a SO3-pyridine complex.

Poor premorbid school performance, but not severity of illness, predicts cognitive decline in schizophrenia in midlife.

Neurocognitive dysfunction is common in schizophrenia but its course and determinants remain uncertain. Our aim was to analyse if premorbid school performance and the severity of illness and functioning predict change in cognition in schizophrenia in a general population sample. The sample included cases with schizophrenia spectrum disorder from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966.

Modification of potato peel waste with base hydrolysis and subsequent cationization.

Potato peel waste (PW) is a starch containing biomaterial produced in large amounts by food processing industry. In this work, the treatment of PW by alkaline hydrolysis and cationization in the water phase is reported. In order to improve the cationization of starch, PW was hydrolyzed by heating with alkaline (NaOH) ethanol solution (80%) in a water bath.

Preparation of cationized pine sawdust for nitrate removal: Optimization of reaction conditions.

Anion exchange materials were prepared from pine sawdust (Pinus sylvestris, PSD) through cationizing treatment with N-(3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl) trimethyl ammonium chloride (CHMAC) in the presence of NaOH. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to find the optimal reaction conditions. Three factors were chosen: reaction temperature (26-94 °C), reaction time (0.

Drinking water quality monitoring using trend analysis.

One of the common quality parameters for drinking water is residual aluminium. High doses of residual aluminium in drinking water or water used in the food industry have been proved to be at least a minor health risk or even to increase the risk of more serious health effects, and cause economic losses to the water treatment plant. In this study, the trend index is developed from scaled measurement data to detect a warning of changes in residual aluminium level in drinking water.

Using the unified relationship matrix adjusted by breed-wise allele frequencies in genomic evaluation of a multibreed population.

The observed low accuracy of genomic selection in multibreed and admixed populations results from insufficient linkage disequilibrium between markers and trait loci. Failure to remove variation due to the population structure may also hamper the prediction accuracy. We verified if accounting for breed origin of alleles in the calculation of genomic relationships would improve the prediction accuracy in an admixed population.

Nuclear spin-spin coupling in a van der Waals-bonded system: xenon dimer.

Nuclear spin-spin coupling over van der Waals bond has recently been observed via the frequency shift of solute protons in a solution containing optically hyperpolarized (129)Xe nuclei. We carry out a first-principles computational study of the prototypic van der Waals-bonded xenon dimer, where the spin-spin coupling between two magnetically non-equivalent isotopes, J((129)Xe - (131)Xe), is observable. We use relativistic theory at the four-component Dirac-Hartree-Fock and Dirac-density-functional theory levels using novel completeness-optimized Gaussian basis sets and choosing the functional based on a comparison with correlated ab initio methods at the nonrelativistic level.

Multimodal emotion recognition by combining physiological signals and facial expressions: a preliminary study.

Lately, multimodal approaches for automatic emotion recognition have gained significant scientific interest. In this paper, emotion recognition by combining physiological signals and facial expressions was studied. Heart rate variability parameters, respiration frequency, and facial expressions were used to classify person's emotions while watching pictures with emotional content.

EEG-based detection of awakening from isoflurane anesthesia in rats.

In animal studies, reliable measures for depth of anesthesia are frequently required. Previous findings suggest that the continuous depth of anesthesia indices developed for humans might not be adequate for rats whose EEG changes during anesthesia represent more of quick transitions between discrete states. In this paper, the automatic EEG-based detection of awakening from anesthesia was studied in rats.

Optimal growth strategies under divergent predation pressure.

The conditions leading to gigantism in nine-spined sticklebacks Pungitius pungitius were analysed by modelling fish growth with the von Bertalanffy model searching for the optimal strategy when the model's growth constant and asymptotic fish size parameters are negatively related to each other. Predator-related mortality was modelled through the increased risk of death during active foraging. The model was parameterized with empirical growth data of fish from four different populations and analysed for optimal growth strategy at different mortality levels.

Reduction in metabolic syndrome among obese young men is associated with exercise-induced body composition changes during military service.

Aims: A population-based study of 1046 young Finnish men was performed to evaluate whether body composition changes observed during military service are associated with a reduction in prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS), and whether the effect is body mass index (BMI)-dependent.

Methods: A prospective study of 1046 men (mean age 19.2 years, SD 1.

Dowsing can be interfered with by radio frequency radiation.

The soil radiation, watercourses and ores have been located for centuries by sensitive persons, dowsers. An ideomotoric explanation of the dowsing reaction, with no physical interaction, has been accepted. Our present re-analyses of some such results have shown, that there could be a physical phenomenon connecting the human reactions in field experiments, where the test subjects walked or were sitting in a slow-moving car, with the windows covered, and a dowsing rod in their hands was recorded.

Fully Relativistic Calculations of Faraday and Nuclear Spin-Induced Optical Rotation in Xenon.

Nuclear spin-induced optical rotation (NSOR) arising from the Faraday effect may constitute an advantageous novel method for the detection of nuclear magnetization. We present first-principles nonrelativistic and relativistic, two- and four-component, basis-set limit calculations of this phenomenon for xenon. It is observed that only by utilization of relativistic methods may one qualitatively reproduce experimental liquid-state NSOR data.

S100B proteins in febrile seizures.

S100B protein concentrations correlate with the severity and outcome of brain damage after brain injuries, and have been shown to be markers of blood-brain barrier damage. In children elevated S100B values are seen as a marker of damage to astrocytes even after mild head injuries. S100B proteins may also give an indication of an ongoing pathological process in the brain with respect to febrile seizures (FS) and the likelihood of their recurrence.