Characterisation of antibodies to chloramphenicol, produced in different species by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and biosensor technologies

Six polyclonal antisera to chloramphenicol (CAP) were successfully raised in camels, donkeys and goats. As a comparison of sensitivity, IC50 values ranged from 0.3 ng mL(-1) to 5.5 ng mL(-1) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and from 0.7 ng mL(-1) to 1.7 ng mL(-1) by biosensor assay. The introduction of bovine milk extract improved the sensitivity of four of the antisera by ELISA and two by biosensor assay; a reduction in sensitivity of the remaining antisera ranged by a factor of 1.1-2.6. Porcine kidney extract reduced the sensitivity of all the antisera by a factor ranging from 1.1 to 7 by ELISA and a factor of 1.5 to 4 by biosensor. A low cross-reactivity with thiamphenicol (TAP) and florfenicol (FF) was displayed by antiserurn G2 (1.2% and 18%, respectively) when a homologous ELISA assay format was employed. No cross-reactivity was displayed by any of the antisera when a homologous biosensor assay format was employed. Switching to a heterologous ELISA format prompted three of the antisera to display more significant cross-reactivity with TAP and FF (53% and 82%, respectively, using Dl). The heterologous biosensor assay also increased the cross-reactivity of D1 for TAP and FF (56% and 129%, respectively) and of one other antiserum (Gl) to a lesser degree. However, unlike the ELISA, the heterologous biosensor assay produced a substantial reduction in sensitivity (by a factor of 6 for D1). (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Remediation technologies for heavy metal contaminated ground water

This is a major review work on ground water remediation since the earlier work of Mulligan et al published in 2001 in Engineering Geology Journal. This work resulted from the joint research project of QUB and University of Malaya on iron removal from groundwater for public water supply.

Electrical energy storage and Smart Grid technologies to integrate the next generation of Renewable Power Systems

The growth of renewable power sources, distributed generation and the potential for alternative fuelled modes of transport such as electric vehicles has led to concerns over the ability of existing grid systems to facilitate such diverse portfolio mixes in already congested power systems. Internationally the growth in renewable energy sources is driven by government policy targets associated with the uncertainties of fossil fuel supplies, environmental issues and a move towards energy independence. Power grids were traditionally designed as vertically integrated centrally managed entities with fully dispatchable generating plant. Renewable power sources, distributed generation and alternative fuelled vehicles will place these power systems under additional stresses and strains due to their different operational characteristics. Energy storage and smart grid technologies are widely proposed as the tools to integrate these future diverse portfolio mixes within the more conventional power systems. The choice in these technologies is determined not only by their location on the grid system, but by the diversification in the power portfolio mix, the electricity market and the operational demands. This paper presents a high level technical and economic overview of the role and relevance of electrical energy storage and smart grid technologies in the next generation of renewable power systems.

'Mining money': science, legal technologies & working the borderlands of global finance

This paper explores the roles of science and market devices in the commodification of ‘nature’ and the configuration of flows of speculative capital. It focuses on mineral prospecting and the market for shares in ‘junior’ mining companies. In recent years these companies have expanded the reach of their exploration activities overseas, taking advantage of innovations in exploration methodologies and the liberalisation of fiscal and property regimes in ‘emerging’ mineral rich developing countries. Recent literature has explored how the reconfiguration of notions of ‘risk’ has structured the uneven distribution of rents. It is increasingly evident that neoliberal framing of environmental, political, social and economic risks has set in motion overflows that multinational mining capital had not bargained for (e.g. nationalisation, violence and political resistance). However, the role of ‘geological risk’ in animating flows of mining finance is often assumed as a ‘technical’ given. Yet geological knowledge claims, translated locally, designed to travel globally, assemble heterogeneous elements within distanciated regimes of metrology, valuation and commodity production. This paper explores how knowledge of nature is enrolled within systems of property relations, focusing on the genealogy of the knowledge practices that animate contemporary circuits of speculative mining finance. It argues that the financing of mineral prospecting mobilises pragmatic and situated forms of knowledge rather than actuarially driven calculations that promise predictability. A Canadian public enquiry struck in the wake of scandal associated with Bre-X’s prospecting activities in Indonesia is used to glean insights into the ways in which the construction of a system of public warrant to underpin financial speculation is predicated upon particular subjectivities and the outworking of everyday practices and struggles over ‘value’. Reflection on practical investments in processes of standardisation, rituals of verification and systems of accreditation reveal much about how the materiality of things shape the ways in which regional and global financial circuits are integrated, selectively transforming existing social relations and forms of knowledge production.

TEXTILE TECHNOLOGIES IN CONCRETE ENVIRONMENTS."

Girli Concrete is a cross disciplinary funded research project based in the University of Ulster involving a textile designer/ researcher, an architect/ academic and a concrete manufacturing firm.
Girli Concrete brings together concrete and textile technologies, testing ideas of
concrete as textile and textile as structure. It challenges the perception of textiles as only the ‘dressing’ to structure and instead integrates textile technologies into the products of building products. Girli Concrete uses ‘low tech’ methods of wet and dry concrete casting in combination with ‘high tech’ textile methods using laser cutting, etching, flocking and digital printing. Whilst we have been inspired by recent print and imprint techniques in architectural cladding, Girli Concrete is generated within the depth of the concrete’s cement paste “skin”, bringing the trades and crafts of both industries together with innovative results.
Architecture and Textiles have an odd, somewhat unresolved relationship. Confined to a subservient role in architecture, textiles exist chiefly within the categories of soft furnishings and interior design. Girli Concrete aims to mainstream tactility in the production of built environment products, raising the human and environmental interface to the same specification level as the technical. This paper will chart:
The background and wider theoretical concerns to the project.
The development of Girli Concrete, highlighting the areas where craft becomes
art and art becomes science in the combination of textile and concrete
technologies.
The challenges of identifying funding to support such combination technologies,
working methods and philosophies.
The challenges of generating and sustaining practice within an academic
research environment
The outcomes to date

Contemporary environmental issues of landfill leachate: assessment & remedies

Landfills are the primary option for waste disposal all over the world. Most of the landfill sites across the world are old and are not engineered to prevent contamination of the underlying soil and groundwater by the toxic leachate. The pollutants from landfill leachate have accumulative and detrimental effect on the ecology and food chains leading to carcinogenic effects, acute toxicity and genotoxicity among human beings. Management of this highly toxic leachate presents a challenging problem to the regulatory authorities who have set specific regulations regarding maximum limits of contaminants in treated leachate prior to disposal into the environment to ensure minimal environmental impact. There are different stages of leachate management such as monitoring of its formation and flow into the environment, identification of hazards associated with it and its treatment prior to disposal into the environment. This review focuses on: (i) leachate composition, (ii) Plume migration, (iii) Contaminant fate, (iv) Leachate plume monitoring techniques, (v) Risk assessment techniques, Hazard rating methods, mathematical modeling, and (vi) Recent innovations in leachate treatment technologies. However, due to seasonal fluctuations in leachate composition, flow rate and leachate volume, the management approaches cannot be stereotyped. Every scenario is unique and the strategy will vary accordingly. This paper lays out the choices for making an educated guess leading to the best management option.

How useful are databases in environmental and criminal forensics?

Advances in computational and information technologies have facilitated the acquisition of geospatial information for regional and national soil and geology databases. These have been completed for a range of purposes from geological and soil baseline mapping to economic prospecting and land resource assessment, but have become increasingly used for forensic purposes. On the question of provenance of a questioned sample, the geologist or soil scientist will draw invariably on prior expert knowledge and available digital map and database sources in a ‘pseudo Bayesian’ approach. The context of this paper is the debate on whether existing (digital) geology and soil databases are indeed useful and suitable for forensic inferences. Published and new case studies are used to explore issues of completeness, consistency, compatibility and applicability in relation to the use of digital geology and soil databases in environmental and criminal forensics. One key theme that emerges is that, despite an acknowledgement that databases can be neither exhaustive nor precise enough to portray spatial variability at the scene of crime scale, coupled with expert knowledge, they play an invaluable role in providing background or
reference material in a criminal investigation. Moreover databases can offer an independent control set of samples.

Stress tolerance and virulence of insect-pathogenic fungi are determined by environmental conditions during conidial formation

The virulence to insects and tolerance to heat and UV-B radiation of conidia of entomopathogenic fungi are greatly influenced by physical, chemical, and nutritional conditions during mycelial growth. This is evidenced, for example, by the stress phenotypes of Metarhizium robertsii produced on various substrates. Conidia from minimal medium (Czapek's medium without sucrose), complex medium, and insect (Lepidoptera and Coleoptera) cadavers had high, moderate, and poor tolerance to UV-B radiation, respectively. Furthermore, conidia from minimal medium germinated faster and had increased heat tolerance and were more virulent to insects than those from complex medium. Low water-activity or alkaline culture conditions also resulted in production of conidia with high tolerance to heat or UV-B radiation. Conidia produced on complex media exhibited lower stress tolerance, whereas those from complex media supplemented with NaCl or KCl (to reduce water activity) were more tolerant to heat and UV-B than those from the unmodified complex medium. Osmotic and nutritive stresses resulted in production of conidia with a robust stress phenotype, but also were associated with low conidial yield. Physical conditions such as growth under illumination, hypoxic conditions, and heat shock before conidial production also induced both higher UV-B and heat tolerance; but conidial production was not decreased. In conclusion, physical and chemical parameters, as well as nutrition source, can induce great variability in conidial tolerance to stress for entomopathogenic fungi. Implications are discussed in relation to the ecology of entomopathogenic fungi in the field, and to their use for biological control. This review will cover recent technologies on improving stress tolerance of entomopathogenic fungi for biological control of insects.

The emergence of bone technologies at the end of the pleistocene in Southeast Asia:Regional and evolutionary implications

For many decades Palaeolithic research viewed the development of early modern human behaviour as largely one of progress down a path towards the modernity of the present. The European Palaeolithic sequence the most extensively studied was for a long time the yard-stick against which records from other regions were judged. Recent work undertaken in Africa and increasingly Asia, however, now suggests that the European evidence may tell a story that is more parochial and less universal than previously thought. While tracking developments at the large scale (the grand narrative) remains important, there is growing appreciation that to achieve a comprehensive understanding of human behavioural evolution requires an archaeologically regional perspective to balance this. One of the apparent markers of human modernity that has been sought in the global Palaeolithic record, prompted by finds in the European sequence, is innovation in bonebased technologies. As one step in the process of re-evaluating and contextualizing such innovations, in this article we explore the role of prehistoric bone technologies within the Southeast Asian sequence, where they have at least comparable antiquity to Europe and other parts of Asia. We observe a shift in the technological usage of bone from a minor component to a medium of choice during the second half of the Last Termination and into the Holocene. We suggest that this is consistent with it becoming a focus of the kinds of inventive behaviour demanded of foraging communities as they adapted to the far-reaching environmental and demographic changes that were reshaping this region at that time. This record represents one small element of a much wider, much longerterm adaptive process, which we would argue is not confined to the earliest instances of a particular technology or behaviour, but which forms part of an on-going story of our behavioural evolution. © 2012 The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Assessment on Lignocellulosic Biomass Thermochemical Conversion Technologies: A Review

Bioenergy derived from biomass provides a promising energy alternative and can reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from fossil fuels. Biomass-based thermochemical conversion technologies have been acknowledged as apt options to convert bioresources into bioenergy; this bioenergy includes electricity, heat, and fuels/chemicals in solid, liquid, and gaseous phases. In this review, the techno-economic and life cycle assessment of these technologies (combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, liquefaction, carbonization, and co-firing) are summarized. Specific indicators (production costs in a techno-economic analysis, functional units and environmental impacts in a life cycle analysis) for different technologies were compared. Finally, gaps in research and future trends in biomass thermochemical conversion were identified. This review could be used to guide future research related to economic and environmental benefits of bioenergy.

Integrated techno-economic and environmental assessments of sixty scenarios for co-firing biomass with coal and natural gas

Displacement of fossil fuel-based power through biomass co-firing could reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels. In this study, data-intensive techno-economic models were developed to evaluate different co-firing technologies as well as the configurations of these technologies. The models were developed to study 60 different scenarios involving various biomass feedstocks (wood chips, wheat straw, and forest residues) co-fired either with coal in a 500 MW subcritical pulverized coal (PC) plant or with natural gas in a 500 MW natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plant to determine their technical potential and costs, as well as to determine environmental benefits. The results obtained reveal that the fully paid-off coal-fired power plant co-fired with forest residues is the most attractive option, having levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) of $53.12–$54.50/MW h and CO2 abatement costs of $27.41–$31.15/tCO2. When whole forest chips are co-fired with coal in a fully paid-off plant, the LCOE and CO2 abatement costs range from $54.68 to $56.41/MW h and $35.60 to $41.78/tCO2, respectively. The LCOE and CO2 abatement costs for straw range from $54.62 to $57.35/MW h and $35.07 to $38.48/tCO2, respectively.