A brackishwater isolate of Pseudomonas PS-102, a potential antagonistic bacterium against pathogenic vibrios in penaeid and non-penaeid rearing systems

A Pseudomonas sp PS-102 recovered from Muttukkadu brackish water lagoon, situated south of Chennai, showed significant activity against a number of shrimp pathogenic vibrios. Out of the 112 isolates of bacterial pathogens comprising Vibrio harveyi, V. vulnificus, V. parahaemolyticus, V. alginolyticus, V. fluvialis, and Aeromonas spp, 73% were inhibited in vitro by the cell-free culture supernatant of Pseudomonas sp PS-102 isolate. The organism produced yellowish fluorescent pigment on King's B medium, hydrolysed starch and protein, and produced 36.4% siderophore units by CAS assay and 32 μM of catechol siderophores as estimated by Arnow's assay. The PS-102 isolate showed wide ranging environmental tolerance with, temperatures from 25 to 40 °C, pH from 6 to 8, salinity from 0 to 36 ppt, while the antagonistic activity peaked in cultures grown at 30 °C, pH 8.0 and at 5 ppt saline conditions. The antagonistic activity of the culture supernatant was evident even at 30% v / v dilution against V. harveyi. The preliminary studies on the nature of the antibacterial action indicated that the antagonistic principle as heat stable and resistant to proteolytic, lipolytic and amylolytic enzymes. Pseudomonas sp PS 102 was found to be safe to shrimp when PL-9 stage were challenged at 107 CFU ml−1 and by intramuscular injection into of ∼5 g sub-adults shrimp at 105 to 108 CFU. Further, its safety in a mammalian system, tested by its pathogenicity to mice, was also determined and its LD50 to BALB/c mice was found to be 109 CFU. The results of this study indicated that the organism Pseudomonas sp PS 102 could be employed as a potential probiont in shrimp and prawn aquaculture systems for management and control of bacterial infections

Safe Contiki OS: Type and Memory Safety for Contiki OS

Embedded systems, especially Wireless Sensor Nodes are highly prone to Type Safety and Memory Safety issues. Contiki, a prominent Operating System in the domain is even more affected by the problem since it makes extensive use of Type casts and Pointers. The work is an attempt to nullify the possibility of Safety violations in Contiki. We use a powerful, still efficient tool called Deputy to achieve this. We also try to automate the process

Safe Contiki OS: Type and Memory Safety for Contiki OS

Embedded systems, especially Wireless Sensor Nodes are highly prone to Type Safety and Memory Safety issues. Contiki, a prominent Operating System in the domain is even more affected by the problem since it makes extensive use of Type casts and Pointers. The work is an attempt to nullify the possibility of Safety violations in Contiki. We use a powerful, still efficient tool called Deputy to achieve this. We also try to automate the process

Wastewater usage in urban and peri-urban agricultural production systems: scenarios from India

The role urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) plays in reducing urban poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability was recognized by the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs). India is the world’s largest democratic nation with a population of 1.2 billion. The rapid urbanization and high proportion of people below the poverty line along with higher migration to urban areas make India vulnerable to food crisis and urbanization of poverty. Ensuring jobs and food security among urban poor is a major challenge in India. The role of UPA can be well explained and understood in this context. This paper focuses on the current situation of UPA production in India with special attention to wastewater irrigation. This question is being posed about the various human health risks from wastewater irrigation which are faced by farmers and labourers, and, secondly by consumers. The possible health hazards involve microbial pathogens as well as helminth (intestinal parasites). Based on primary and secondary data, this paper attempts to confirm that UPA is one of the best options to address increasing urban food demand and can serve to complement rural supply chains and reduce ecological food prints in India. “Good practice urban and peri-urban agriculture” necessitates an integrated approach with suitable risk reduction mechanisms to improve the efficiency and safety of UPA production.

Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems: Heat Transfer Issues and Trends

Almost 450 nuclear power plants are currently operating throughout the world and supplying about 17% of the world’s electricity. These plants perform safely, reliably, and have no free-release of byproducts to the environment. Given the current rate of growth in electricity demand and the ever growing concerns for the environment, the US consumer will favor energy sources that can satisfy the need for electricity and other energy-intensive products (1) on a sustainable basis with minimal environmental impact, (2) with enhanced reliability and safety and (3) competitive economics. Given that advances are made to fully apply the potential benefits of nuclear energy systems, the next generation of nuclear systems can provide a vital part of a long-term, diversified energy supply. The Department of Energy has begun research on such a new generation of nuclear energy systems that can be made available to the market by 2030 or earlier, and that can offer significant advances toward these challenging goals [1]. These future nuclear power systems will require advances in materials, reactor physics as well as heat transfer to realize their full potential. In this paper, a summary of these advanced nuclear power systems is presented along with a short synopsis of the important heat transfer issues. Given the nature of research and the dynamics of these conceptual designs, key aspects of the physics will be provided, with details left for the presentation.

Incremental Verification of Timing Constraints for Real-Time Systems

Testing constraints for real-time systems are usually verified through the satisfiability of propositional formulae. In this paper, we propose an alternative where the verification of timing constraints can be done by counting the number of truth assignments instead of boolean satisfiability. This number can also tell us how “far away” is a given specification from satisfying its safety assertion. Furthermore, specifications and safety assertions are often modified in an incremental fashion, where problematic bugs are fixed one at a time. To support this development, we propose an incremental algorithm for counting satisfiability. Our proposed incremental algorithm is optimal as no unnecessary nodes are created during each counting. This works for the class of path RTL. To illustrate this application, we show how incremental satisfiability counting can be applied to a well-known rail-road crossing example, particularly when its specification is still being refined.

The Complexity of Safety Stock Placement in General-Network Supply Chains

We consider the optimization problem of safety stock placement in a supply chain, as formulated in [1]. We prove that this problem is NP-Hard for supply chains modeled as general acyclic networks. Thus, we do not expect to find a polynomial-time algorithm for safety stock placement for a general-network supply chain.

HSE - Microbiological Safety Cabinet Training Video

This training video is intended to familiarise researchers and technicians, working with potentially airborne pathogens, on the correct and safe use of Microbiological Safety Cabinets. The video also provides instruction on cleaning, disinfection and fumigation regimes; maintenance and testing regimes; and commissioning and decommissioning requirements of such Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) systems. It is in Windows Media Video format which will require a free media player such as Windows Media Player or VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) to watch.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.

Nutritional and safety assessments of foods and feeds nutritionally improved through biotechnology: Case studies

During the last 2 decades, the public and private sectors have made substantial international research progress toward improving the nutritional value of a wide range of food and feed crops. Nevertheless, significant numbers of people still suffer from the effects of undernutrition. In addition, the nutritional quality of feed is often a limiting factor in livestock production systems, particularly those in developing countries. As newly developed crops with nutritionally improved traits come closer to being available to producers and consumers, we must ensure that scientifically sound and efficient processes are used to assess the safety and nutritional quality of these crops. Such processes will facilitate deploying these crops to those world areas with large numbers of people who need them. This document describes 5 case studies of crops with improved nutritional value. These case studies examine the principles and recommendations published by the Intl. Life Sciences Inst. (ILSI) in 2004 for the safety and nutritional assessment of foods and feeds derived from nutritionally improved crops (ILSI 2004). One overarching conclusion that spans all 5 case studies is that the comparative safety assessment process is a valid approach. Such a process has been endorsed by many publications and organizations, including the 2004 ILSI publication. The type and extent of data that are appropriate for a scientifically sound comparative safety assessment are presented on a case-by-case basis in a manner that takes into account scientific results published since the 2004 ILSI report. This report will appear in the January issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety.

Pervaporation dehydration of isopropyl alcohol with NaY zeolite incorvorated hybrid membranes

With a solution technique, NaY zeolite incorporated, tetraethylorthosilicate-crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) membranes were prepared. The resulting membranes were tested for their ability to separate isopropyl alcohol/water mixtures by pervaporation in the temperature range of 30-50 degrees C. The effects of the zeolite content and feed composition on the pervaporation performance of the membranes were investigated. The experimental results demonstrated that both flux and selectivity increased simultaneously with increasing zeolite content in the membranes. This was explained on the basis of the enhancement of hydrophilicity, selective adsorption, and establishment of a molecular sieving action attributed to the creation of pores in the membrane matrix. The membrane containing 15 mass % zeolite exhibited the highest separation selectivity of 3991 with a flux of 5.39 X 10(-2) kg/m(2) h with 10 mass % water in the feed at 30 degrees C. The total flux and flux of water were close to each other for almost all the studied membranes, and this suggested that the membranes could be used effectively to break the azeotropic point of water/isopropyl alcohol mixtures to remove a small amount of water from isopropyl alcohol. From the temperature-dependent diffusion and permeation values, the Arrhenius activation parameters were estimated. The activation energy values obtained for water were significantly lower than those for isopropyl alcohol, and this suggested that the developed membranes had a higher separation efficiency for water/isopropyl alcohol systems. The activation energy values for total permeation and water permeation were found to be almost the same for all the membranes, and this signified that coupled transport was minimal because of the highly selective nature of the membranes. Positive heat of sorption values were observed in all the membranes, and this suggested that Henry's mode of sorption was predominant. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, lnc.

Innovative approach to building systems integration problems: Using systems theory, technological forecasting and scenario planning

Building services are worth about 2% GDP and are essential for the effective and efficient operations of the building. It is increasingly recognised that the value of a building is related to the way it supports the client organisation’s ongoing business operations. Building services are central to the functional performance of buildings and provide the necessary conditions for health, well-being, safety and security of the occupants. They frequently comprise several technologically distinct sub-systems and their design and construction requires the involvement of numerous disciplines and trades. Designers and contractors working on the same project are frequently employed by different companies. Materials and equipment is supplied by a diverse range of manufacturers. Facilities managers are responsible for operation of the building service in use. The coordination between these participants is crucially important to achieve optimum performance, but too often is neglected. This leaves room for serious faults. The need for effective integration is important. Modern technology offers increasing opportunities for integrated personal-control systems for lighting, ventilation and security as well as interoperability between systems. Opportunities for a new mode of systems integration are provided by the emergence of PFI/PPP procurements frameworks. This paper attempts to establish how systems integration can be achieved in the process of designing, constructing and operating building services. The essence of the paper therefore is to envisage the emergent organisational responses to the realisation of building services as an interactive systems network.

The role of the Hellenic food safety authority in Greece: implementation strategies

During the last 15 years, a series of food scares and crises (BSE, dioxin. foot and mouth disease) have seriously under-mined public confidence in food producers and operators and their capacity to produce safe food. As a result, food safety has become a top priority of the European legislative authorities and systems of national food control have been tightened up and have included the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority. In Greece a law creating the Hellenic Food Safety Authority has been approved. The main objectives of this Authority are to promote the food security to consumers and inform them of any changes or any development in the food and health sector. The paper reviews the general structure of the current food control system in Greece. It describes the structure and the mission of the Hellenic Food Safety Authority and explains the strategy to carry out inspections and the analysis of the preliminary results of such inspections. Details are also given of the personnel training and certification and accreditation standards to be met by the Authority by the end of 2004. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A situation analysis of the food control systems in Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

Increased concerns over food safety have led to the adoption of international guidance on the key elements for national food control systems. This guidance had been used to conduct an initial assessment of the status of the food control systems in the countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council. Our research has identified how the countries have been attempting to enhance their food control systems. Although the countries have different approaches to food control management, cooperation is leading to increased harmonization of legislation and food control practices. Progress is being made but there is evidence of some weakness where additional efforts may be needed. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gas-phase reactions of NO3 and N2O5 with (Z)-hex-4-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol ('leaf alcohol'), (E)-hex-3-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-2-en-1-ol and (E)-hex-2-en-1-ol

The night-time atmospheric chemistry of the biogenic volatile organic compounds (Z)-hex-4-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol ('leaf alcohol'), (E)-hex-3-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-2-en-1-ol and (E)-hex-2-en-1-ol, has been studied at room temperature. Rate coefficients for reactions of the nitrate radical (NO3) with these stress-induced plant emissions were measured using the discharge-flow technique. We employed off-axis continuous-wave cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) for the detection of NO3, which enabled us to work in excess of the hexenol compounds over NO3. The rate coefficients determined were (2.93 +/- 0.58) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1), (2.67 +/- 0.42) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1), (4.43 +/- 0.91) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1), (1.56 +/- 0.24) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1), and (1.30 +/- 0.24) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1) for (Z)-hex-4-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-3en-1-ol, (E)-hex-3-en-1-ol, (Z)-hex-2-en-1-ol and (E)-hex-2-en-1-ol. The rate coefficient for the reaction of NO3 with (Z)-hex-3-en-1-ol agrees with the single published determination of the rate coefficient using a relative method. The other rate coefficients have not been measured before and are compared to estimated values. Relative-rate studies were also performed, but required modification of the standard technique because N2O5 (used as the source of NO3) itself reacts with the hexenols. We used varying excesses of NO2 to determine simultaneously rate coefficients for reactions of NO3 and N2O5 with (E)-hex-3-en-1-ol of (5.2 +/- 1.8) x 10(-13) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1) and (3.1 +/- 2.3) x 10(-18) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1). Our new determinations suggest atmospheric lifetimes with respect to NO3-initiated oxidation of roughly 1-4 h for the hexenols, comparable with lifetimes estimated for the atmospheric degradation by OH and shorter lifetimes than for attack by O-3. Recent measurements of [N2O5] suggest that the gas-phase reactions of N2O5 with unsaturated alcohols will not be of importance under usual atmospheric conditions, but they certainly can be in laboratory systems when determining rate coefficients.