Life cycle assessment of Polychlorinated Biphenyl contaminated soil remediation processes

Goal and scope. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of the remediation of industrial soils contaminated by polychlorobiphenyl (PCB). Two new bioremediation treatment options were compared with the usual incineration process. In this attributional LCA, only secondary impacts were considered. The contaminated soil used for the experiments contained 200 mg of PCB per kg. Methods. Three off-site treatments scenarios were studied: 1) bioremediation with mechanical aeration, 2) bioremediation with electric aeration and 3) incineration with natural gas. Bioremediation processes were designed from lab-scale, scale-up and pilot experiments. The incineration technique was inspired by a French plant. A semi-quantitative uncertainty analysis was performed on the data. Environmental impacts were evaluated with the CML 2001 method using the Simapro software program. Results and discussion. In most compared categories, the bioremediation processes are favorable. Of the bioremediation options, the lowest environmental footprint was observed for electric aeration. The uncertainty analysis supported the results that compared incineration and bioremediation but decreased the difference between the options of aeration. The distance of transportation was one of the most sensitive parameters, especially for bioremediation. At equal distances between the polluted sites and the treatment plant, bioremediation had fewer impacts than incineration in eight out of thirteen categories. Conclusions. The use of natural gas for the incineration process generated the most impacts. Irrespective of the aeration option, bioremediation was better than incineration. Recommendations. The time of treatment should be taken into account. More precise and detailed data are required for the incineration scenario. More parameters of biological treatments should be measured. LCA results should be completed using ecological and health risk assessment and an acceptability evaluation

Improved isolation of cadmium from paddy soil by novel technology based on pore water drainage with graphite-contained electro-kinetic geosynthetics

Novel soil remediation equipment based on electro-kinetic geosynthetics (EKG) was developed for in situ isolation of metals from paddy soil. Two mutually independent field plot experiments A and B (with and without electric current applied) were conducted. After saturation using ferric chloride (FeCl3) and calcium chloride (CaCl2), soil water drainage capacity, soil cadmium (Cd) removal performance, energy consumption as well as soil residual of iron (Fe) and chloride (Cl) were assessed. Cadmium dissolved in the soil matrix and resulted in a 100% increase of diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid (DTPA) extracted phyto-available Cd. The total soil Cd content reductions were 15.20% and 26.58% for groups A and B, respectively, and electric field applications resulted in a 74.87% increase of soil total Cd removal. The electric energy consumption was only 2.17 kWh/m3 for group B. Drainage by gravity contributed to > 90% of the overall soil dewatering capacity. Compared to conventional electro-kinetic technology, excellent and fast soil water drainage resulted in negligible hydrogen ion (H+) and hydroxide ion (OH−) accumulation at nearby electrode zones, which addressed the challenge of anode corrosion and cathode precipitation of soil metals. External addition of FeCl3 and CaCl2 caused soil Fe and Cl residuals and led to 4.33–7.59% and 139–172% acceptable augments in soil total Fe and Cl content, correspondingly, if compared to original untreated soils. Therefore, the novel soil remediation equipment developed based on EKG can be regarded as a promising new in situ technology for thoroughly isolating metals from large-scale paddy soil fields

Risk of chronic kidney disease after cancer nephrectomy.

The incidence of early stage renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is increasing and observational studies have shown equivalent oncological outcomes of partial versus radical nephrectomy for stage I tumours. Population studies suggest that compared with radical nephrectomy, partial nephrectomy is associated with decreased mortality and a lower rate of postoperative decline in kidney function. However, rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients who have undergone nephrectomy might be higher than in the general population. The risks of new-onset or accelerated CKD and worsened survival after nephrectomy might be linked, as kidney insufficiency is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and mortality. Nephron-sparing approaches have, therefore, been proposed as the standard of care for patients with type 1a tumours and as a viable option for those with type 1b tumours. However, prospective data on the incidence of de novo and accelerated CKD after cancer nephrectomy is lacking, and the only randomized trial to date was closed prematurely. Intrinsic abnormalities in non-neoplastic kidney parenchyma and comorbid conditions (including diabetes mellitus and hypertension) might increase the risks of CKD and RCC. More research is needed to better understand the risk of CKD post-nephrectomy, to develop and validate predictive scores for risk-stratification, and to optimize patient management

BRN2 suppresses apoptosis, reprograms DNA damage repair, and is associated with a high somatic mutation burden in melanoma

Whether cell types exposed to a high level of environmental insults possess cell type-specific prosurvival mechanisms or enhanced DNA damage repair capacity is not well understood. BRN2 is a tissue-restricted POU domain transcription factor implicated in neural development and several cancers. In melanoma, BRN2 plays a key role in promoting invasion and regulating proliferation. Here we found, surprisingly, that rather than interacting with transcription cofactors, BRN2 is instead associated with DNA damage response proteins and directly binds PARP1 and Ku70/Ku80. Rapid PARP1-dependent BRN2 association with sites of DNA damage facilitates recruitment of Ku80 and reprograms DNA damage repair by promoting Ku-dependent nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) at the expense of homologous recombination. BRN2 also suppresses an apoptosis-associated gene expression program to protect against UVB-, chemotherapy- and vemurafenib-induced apoptosis. Remarkably, BRN2 expression also correlates with a high single-nucleotide variation prevalence in human melanomas. By promoting error-prone DNA damage repair via NHEJ and suppressing apoptosis of damaged cells, our results suggest that BRN2 contributes to the generation of melanomas with a high mutation burden. Our findings highlight a novel role for a key transcription factor in reprogramming DNA damage repair and suggest that BRN2 may impact the response to DNA-damaging agents in BRN2-expressing cancers

Ethylenediamine addition improves performance and suppresses phase instabilities in mixed-halide perovskites

We show that adding ethylenediamine (EDA) to perovskite precursor solutions improves the photovoltaic device performance and material stability of high-bromide-content, methylammonium-free, formamidinium cesium lead halide perovskites FA1–xCsxPb(I1–yBry)3, which are currently of interest for perovskite-on-Si tandem solar cells. Using spectroscopy and hyperspectral microscopy, we show that the additive improves film homogeneity and suppresses the phase instability that is ubiquitous in high-Br perovskite formulations, producing films that remain stable for over 100 days in ambient conditions. With the addition of 1 mol % EDA, we demonstrate 1.69 eV-gap perovskite single-junction p-i-n devices with a VOC of 1.22 V and a champion maximum-power-point-tracked power conversion efficiency of 18.8%, comparable to the best reported methylammonium-free perovskites. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques, we show that EDA reacts with FA+ in solution, rapidly and quantitatively forming imidazolinium cations. It is the presence of imidazolinium during crystallization which drives the improved perovskite thin-film properties

MC4R Variant Is Associated With BMI but Not Response to Resistance Training in Young Females

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93697/1/oby_2147_sm_1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93697/2/oby.2010.180.pd