In vitro antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties of seaweed extracts against acne inducing bacteria, Propionibacterium acnes

This study was conducted to evaluate the antimicrobial activities of common seaweeds from the coast of South Korea against the etiologic agents of acne vulgaris. Fifty-seven species of seaweed were screened for potential antimicrobial activity. Methanol extracts of 13 species (22.8%) showed inhibitory effects against Propionibacterium acnes. The aqueous extracts of only two species (3.5%) showed antimicrobial activity. When tested with the agar disk diffusion method, Ecklonia cava, E. kurome, Ishige sinicola, and Symphyocladia latiuscula had the strongest inhibitory effects. However, these four seaweed extracts showed no antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus epidermidis at 5 mg disk-1. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of E. cava and E. kurome were both 0.31 mg ml-1 and the MIC values of l. sinicola and S. latiuscula were 0.26 and 0.21 mg ml-1, respectively. Among whole plants of E. cava and E. kurome, extracts of the pinnate blade had the highest inhibitory activity on bacterial growth. In cytotoxicity assays, methanol extracts of E. cava, E. kurome, and I. sinicola showed no effect on cell viability at concentrations of 200 microg ml-1. However, the methanol extracts of S. latiuscula reduced cell viability rates to 50% at the same concentration. Additionally, methanol extracts of E. cava, E. kurome, and I. sinicola potently inhibited the in vitro production of nitric oxide. These results suggest that the methanol extracts from these three species may be useful in the development of therapeutic agents for acne vulgaris. Further investigations to determine the bioactive compound are in progress.     

A Study on Theoretical Model and Applied Evaluation of Land Use Performance of High-tech Zone in Urban Fringe： A Case Study in Haidian District, Beijing

High-tech industrial zone is an important carrier for constructing innovative cities. It also plays an important role in implementing the national independent innovative strategy. However, most of the high-tech industrial zones have many problems in their development process, such as efficiency of land use, weakness of oriented function and lack of land intensive. To solve these problems, the authors of this paper introduced the concept of land use performance and established the theoretical model to assess the land use performance of high-tech industrial zones. The model consists of the following three-dimensional parts： land use benefit, land use efficiency and innovative function. Based on this theory model, an index system which was composed of three secondary indictors, eight tertiary indictors and 37 fourth-grade indictors was set up to evaluate the land use performance of high-tech zone. To avoid the defects of plus model and function model, the authors brought out a three-dimensional evaluation model to examine the index of the land use performance of the high-tech industrial parks, which equals to the evaluation indicator system of land use performance of high-tech zone based on the above research. The authors examined the land use performance of five different high-tech industrial parks in Haidian District, Beijing City. The results indicated that the indicator system performs better in the aspect of evaluating land use benefit, land use efficiency and function of the high-tech industrial zone compared with other models.     

GENETIC PROGRAMMING AND ITS APPLICATION IN REAL‐TIME RUNOFF FORECASTING1

ABSTRACT: Genetic programming (GP), a relatively new evolutionary technique, is demonstrated in this study to evolve codes for the solution of problems. First, a simple example in the area of symbolic regression is considered. GP is then applied to real‐time runoff forecasting for the Orgeval catchment in France. In this study, GP functions as an error updating scheme to complement a rainfall‐runoff model, MIKE11/NAM. Hourly runoff forecasts of different updating intervals are performed for forecast horizons of up to nine hours. The results show that the proposed updating scheme is able to predict the runoff quite accurately for all updating intervals considered and particularly for updating intervals not exceeding the time of concentration of the catchment. The results are also compared with those of an earlier study, by the World Meteorological Organization, in which autoregression and Kalman filter were used as the updating methods. Comparisons show that GP is a better updating tool for real‐time flow forecasting. Another important finding from this study is that nondimensionalizing the variables enhances the symbolic regression process significantly.     

An efficient synthesis of bisenols in water extract of waste onion peel ash

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Bisenols and its derivatives are attractive heterocyclic compounds exhibiting a wide range of biological properties, including anticancer, antipyretic and...     

Effect of illumination on the hydrogen-production capability of anaerobic activated sludge

To investigate the influence of illumination on the fermentative hydrogen production system, the hydrogen production efficiencies of two kinds of anaerobic activated sludge (floc and granule) from an anaerobic baffled reactor were detected under visible light, dark and light-dark, respectively. The 10 mL floc sludge or granular sludge was respectively inoculated to 100 mL diluted molasses (chemical oxygen demand of 8000 mg·L^-1) in a 250 mL serum bottle, and cultured for 24 h at 37°C under different illumination conditions. The results showed that the floc was more sensitive to illumination than the granule. A hydrogen yield of 19.8 mL was obtained in the dark with a specific hydrogen production rate of 3.52 mol·kg^-1MLVSS·d^-1 (floc), which was the highest among the three illumination conditions. Under dark condition, the hydrogen yield of floc sludge reached the highest with the specific hydrogen production rate of 3.52 mol·kg^-1MLVSS·d^-1, and under light-dark, light, the specific hydrogen production rate was 3.11 and 2.21 mol·kg^-1MLVSS·d^-1, respectively. The results demonstrated that the illumination may affect the dehydrogenase activity of sludge as well as the activity of hydrogen-producing acetogens and then impact hydrogen production capacity.     

Sustainable ternary cement blends with high-volume ground granulated blast furnace slag–fly ash

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Coal fly ash and granulated ground blast furnace slag (GGBS) are more widely used as supplementary cementitious materials in cement production. This...     

Impacts of pH and ammonia on the leaching of Cu(II) and Cd(II) from coal fly ash

Many coal-fired power plants are implementing ammonia-based technologies to reduce NO(x) emissions. Excess ammonia in the flue gas often deposits on the coal fly ash. Ammonia can form complexes with many heavy metals and change the leaching characteristics of these metals. This research tends to develop a fundamental understanding of the ammonia impact on the leaching of some heavy metals, exemplified by Cu(II) and Cd(II), under different pH conditions. Batch results indicated that the adsorption is the main mechanism controlling Cu(II) and Cd(II) leaching, and high concentrations of ammonia (>5,000 mg/l) can increase the release of Cu(II) and Cd(II) in the alkaline pH range. Based on the chemical reactions among fly ash, ammonia, and heavy metal ion, a mathematical model was developed to quantify effects of pH and ammonia on metal adsorption. The adsorption constants (logK) of Cu(2+), Cu(OH)(+), Cu(OH)(2), and Cu(NH(3))(m)(2+) for the fly ash under investigation were respectively 6.0, 7.7, 9.6, and 2.9. For Cd(II), these constants were respectively 4.3, 6.9, 8.8, and 2.6. Metal speciation calculations indicated that the formation of less adsorbable metal-ammonia complexes decreased metal adsorption, therefore enhanced metal leaching.     

A comparison of municipal solid waste management in Berlin and Singapore

A comparative analysis of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in Singapore and Berlin was carried out in order to identify its current status, and highlight the prevailing conditions of MSWM. An overview of the various aspects of MSWM in these two cities is provided, with emphasis on comparing the legal, technical, and managerial aspects of MSW. Collection systems and recycling practiced with respect to the involvement of the government and the private sector, are also presented.Over last two decades, the city of Berlin has made impressive progress with respect to its waste management. The amounts of waste have declined significantly, and at the same time the proportion that could be recovered and recycled has increased. In contrast, although Singapore’s recycling rate has been increasing over the past few years, rapid economic and population growth as well as change in consumption patterns in this city-state has caused waste generation to continue to increase. Landfilling of MSW plays minor role in both cities, one due to geography (Singapore) and the other due to legislative prohibition (Berlin). Consequently, both in Singapore and Berlin, waste is increasingly being used as a valuable resource and great efforts have been made for the development of incineration technology and energy recovery, as well as climate protection.     

Design of a water quality monitoring network in a large river system using the genetic algorithm

Despite several decades of operations and the increasing importance of water quality monitoring networks, the authorities still rely on experiential insights and subjective judgments in siting water quality monitoring stations. This study proposes an integrated technique which uses a genetic algorithm (GA) and a geographic information system (GIS) for the design of an effective water quality monitoring network in a large river system. In order to develop a design scheme, planning objectives were identified for water quality monitoring networks and corresponding fitness functions were defined using linear combinations of five selection criteria that are critical for developing a monitoring system. The criteria include the representativeness of a river system, compliance with water quality standards, supervision of water use, surveillance of pollution sources and examination of water quality changes. The fitness levels were obtained through a series of calculations of the fitness functions using GIS data. A sensitivity analysis was performed for major parameters such as the numbers of generations, population sizes and probability of crossover and mutation, in order to determine a good fitness level and convergence for optimum solutions. The proposed methodology was applied to the design of water quality monitoring networks in the Nakdong River system, in Korea. The results showed that only 35 out of 110 stations currently in operation coincide with those in the new network design, therefore indicating that the effectiveness of the current monitoring network should be carefully re-examined. From this study, it was concluded that the proposed methodology could be a useful decision support tool for the optimized design of water quality monitoring networks.     

序批式生物膜法处理杂排水工艺探讨

本文首次应用了软性填料序批式生物膜法工艺处理杂排水。试验证明，该工艺是行之有效的处理杂排水工艺。研究中确定了适合该工艺的最佳工艺参数，并对软性填料序批式生物膜法Ａ／Ｏ工艺处理杂排水时脱氮、除磷等特点做了进一步探讨。