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Profiling and cancer risk assessment on the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) content of coal ashes produced by the major coal combustion plants from the eastern coalfield region in India was conducted. Thirteen PAHs were detected on coal ashes collected from ash deposition sites of major thermal power plants and the profiling of the PAHs was done. Benzo[

Introduction: Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumours are rare neoplasms which most commonly affect children and young adults. With an intermediate malignant potential, they are typically detected in the abdomen, lung, mediastinum, head and neck, gastrointestinal tract, and genitourinary tract. Case description: We describe the case of a 33-year-old postpartum woman incidentally diagnosed with a pulmonary inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour following complaints of poorly controlled hypertension a week after caesarean section. She was ALK-negative and received an ALK inhibitor with complete resolution of the lesion. A ROS1–TFG fusion confirmed the diagnosis of an inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour after CT-guided fine needle aspiration. Discussion: This case highlights an uncommon presentation posing a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge and the potential treatment option of crizotinib.

A laboratory-scale mesophilic submerged anaerobic hybrid membrane bioreactor (AnHMBR) was operated for 270 days for treatment of high strength synthetic wastewater at different HRTs (3d, 2d, 1d & 0.5 d). COD removal efficiency of 92% was obtained with methane yield rate of 0.18 LCH4/gCODremoval at 1 d HRT. The results of lab scale reactor at 1 d HRT were utilized for up scaling and cost analysis. Cost analysis of the full-scale AnHMBR system showed that tank cost and heating cost accounted for the largest fraction of total life cycle cost. The heating cost can be compensated by gas recovery and heating of influent by permeate. Sensitivity analysis revealed that interest rates, influent flow and membrane flux were the most crucial parameters which affected the total cost of An-HMBR.

This study was conducted to inspect the spatial distribution, source identification, and risk assessment of groundwater arsenic (As) in different blocks that lie on the opposite banks of river Bhagirathi (a distributary of river Ganges), Murshidabad, West Bengal, India. It has been observed that the blocks that lie towards the eastern bank of river Bhagirathi have elevated arsenic and comparatively more reducing groundwater (lower oxidation-reduction potential and high iron). About 66% of groundwater samples across the district have arsenic concentration higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible limit. Speciation of groundwater arsenic reveals that about 90% of arsenic species were present as arsenic (III). Further, principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to identify the controlling factors that favor the release of arsenic. PC1 comprises EC, TDS, As, Fe, TOC, and HCO

A general approach of the multi-input shaping for an underdamped flexible structure is developed using the deadbeat control theory, which states that a discrete-time system can be made to reach the desired position in a minimum time by placing all the poles at the origin of z-plane. It is shown that this theory can also be used to minimize sensitivities to uncertainties in natural frequencies and modal damping ratios. Numerical results are presented for a spring mass model, and a finite element model of a tetrahedral truss structure. These examples deal with cases of number of inputs being equal to number of modes, and also non-integer ratio of numbers of states and inputs.

The present study deals with the assessment of health risks due to fluoride contamination in Bichpuri block of Agra, India. Sampling was carried out from 60 different spatially distributed well locations. Assessment of human health risk was carried out using computations based on chronic daily intake (CDI) and hazard quotient (HQ) in all three categories, i.e., infants, children, and adults. Fluoride ingested by adults, as estimated in terms of CDI was found 1.5 times greater than infants and 1.25 times than children, correspondingly indicating severity of health issue. Moreover, values of HQ were found greater than 1 in the entire target group having infants, children, and adults with the exception only in Bichpuri village of the block. More than 92% of the samples showed risk values exceeding the safe level of 1, indicating vulnerable quality of water due to fluoride. Piper and Schoeller diagram were also plotted to explore presence of other important ions present in the groundwater of studied area.

The present study deals with the assessment of the fluoride concentration from 60 different spatially distributed well locations and associated health risks to rural residents in the Achhnera block of Agra, Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis were applied to quantify uncertainties in risk estimation. Assessment of the human health risk was carried out using computations based on fluoride ingestion (EDIing), dermal absorption of fluoride (EDIder) and hazard quotient (HQ) in all three categorized groups, i.e., infants, children, and adults. Fluoride concentration analyzed was found to be ranging between 0.15 and 2.50 mg/L with an average value of 1.51 mg/L. More than 58% of samples analyzed surpassed the permissible level as per drinking water specifications. From the model obtained for non-carcinogenic risk due to water ingestion, values of IRw range between 55.4% and 62.5% in all the three exposure groups, while that of Cw ranges between 37% and 42.8%. Based on the HQ investigation it was found that infants were at maximum risk followed by children and the least affected were adults. Results showed that based on the sensitivity analysis, a definition of the probability distributions of CW, IRw, EF and SA is presented as the main factor to improve the accuracy of the result.

Background: Suicide in armed forces is a matter of concern despite adequate prophylactic measures that have been adopted to reduce it. Military psychiatrists routinely conduct psychological autopsies. It may reveal various biopsychosocial factors leading to suicide and may be helpful in suicide prevention too. A few studies have been done in Indian Armed Forces but all of them involve cases of attempted suicide. Our study is different as it uses the methodology of psychological autopsy to find out various psychosocial factors of suicide in armed forces. Methods: The present study was carried out in a large service hospital and included all suicide cases occurring in a particular strategic location from February 2014 to July 2017. A total of 16 suicide cases were investigated, and information was collected through visiting the scene, detailed semistructured interviews, the perusal of mobile call records, social website activities, notes in a social diary, bank statements, service record, and health records. Results: The majority (nine of sixteen) of suicide victims were less than 30 years of age. The most common method of suicide (ten of sixteen) was use of firearms. Family history of mental illness/suicide was seen in three of them. Three had a past history of mental illness. Two were abusing substance in the recent past. Behavioral change was noticed in three, and suicide notes were available in three cases. Five had expressed their intent to die. Conclusions: Strain of serving in frontiers is not a common stressor associated with suicide as commonly perceived.

The advancement made in biomedical industry upsurges the consumption rate of pharmaceutical drugs. The lack of proper monitoring and regulation methods leads to the unregulated discharge of pharmaceuticals in wastewater, where it can affect the aquatic organisms. Anticancer drugs are also known as cytostatic drugs mainly used for the treatment of cancer by disrupting the cell function and prevent multiplication of cancerous cell. Therefore, anticancer drugs are suspected to pose potential risk on environment by influencing mutagenic effects on the cells of aquatic organisms. An extensive research has been already made in the field of pharmaceutical removal, however their application on the removal of anticancer drugs is limited. This review paper elucidates about different electrochemical techniques for the mitigation of cytostatic drugs.

A gram-positive gabapentin-degrading bacteria strain N.ISM.1 was isolated from the pharmaceutical plant soil. According to the analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence, the strain was categorized as a Micrococcus luteus. Though the strain N.ISM.1 is capable of degrading gabapentin (GABA), this compound cannot provide enough carbon source for the isolated strain. M. luteus N.ISM.1 degrades GABA in the presence of glucose. The greater the concentration of secondary simpler carbon source (glucose) for cometabolism, the greater the biodegradation of GABA is. Around 97% of GABA was degraded within a course of 40 days after using 150 mg/L glucose as cometabolic simpler carbon source. M. luteus N.ISM.1 is a promising microorganism for the biodegradation of an anticonvulsant drug GABA contaminated environment and with the aid of cometabolic activity of glucose (150 mg/L) the degradation achieved perfection. GABA biodegradation metabolites were identified by a liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. This is the very first report of GABA biodegradation as per our concern.

In the present study, the treatment of synthetic landfill leachate was carried out using a lab-scale anaerobic hybrid membrane bioreactor (An-HMBR). The reactor was operated for 250 days at two days of hydraulic retention time (HRT). Average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was ≥ 88% at steady-state conditions at 100% raw leachate. As organic loading rate (OLR) increased from 1.6 to 13.9 Kg COD m−3 d−1, flux gradually declined from 70 to 52 L/m2 h (LMH) within 250 days. Chemical membrane cleaning enhanced the flux up to 75% of the initial flux at the final stage of the reactor. Reversible fouling (>90%) dominated over irreversible fouling ( MLSS (mixed liquor suspended solids) > EPS > SMP (soluble microbial products). A nonlinear regression model developed for prediction of membrane resistance at different OLR can predict with an error of ±7%.

The partial differential equation of motion of an axially moving beam with spatially varying geometric, mass, and material properties has been derived. Using the theory of linear time-varying systems and numerical optimization, a general algorithm has been developed to compute complex eigenvalues/natural frequencies, mode shapes, and the critical speed for stability. Numerical results from the new method are presented for beams with spatially varying rectangular cross sections with sinusoidal variation in thickness and sine-squared variation in width. They are also compared to those from the Galerkin method. It has been found that critical speed of the beam can be significantly reduced by nonuniformity in a beam's cross section.

Long-term experiments were undertaken to evaluate the role of polyurethane foam (PUF) on performance and in alleviation of fouling in a ceramic membrane integrated in an anaerobic hybrid me...

An Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) based technique has been developed for parameter estimation of turbine blades with friction dampers. The technique is based on integration of Newmark method, an iterative numerical integration method for structural dynamics, with UKF. The technique has been implemented on a single mode model of a turbine blade with a friction damper. Two approaches are developed. First, both steady state vibration and known forcing data are used to estimate parameters such as friction force and slip load. These parameters are treated as additional states of the system and the augmented state space model is used with UKF to estimate parameters. In the second approach, transient vibration response of the system is used to estimate slip load, friction force and unknown sinusoidal forcing function as well. The frequency of sinusoidal external excitation is assumed to be known. The unknown magnitude and phase of the external excitation are represented as a solution of a second order differential equation, which leads to two additional states in the model. Numerical results are presented for both the cases of known and unknown forcing functions in the presence of modeling and measurement errors. A discussion of these results is presented and the validity of the new approach is corroborated.

We investigated the feasibility of using alkaline basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel slag to treat acid mine drainage (AMD). Simulated AMD was treated with different doses of slag (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 g/L) for 24 h in batch reactors. A dose of 30 g/L was considered optimal because it raised the pH to 8.6 and resulted in 99% removal of trace metals in 24 h. The pH increased to 6.36 from the initial pH of 1.5 within 0.5 h of reaction time. Approximately 95% of all trace metals were removed. Of the major cations and anions, Mg showed the highest percentage removal (72%), followed by SO4 (30%), K (8%), and Na (2.1%) at the 30 g/L dose and 0.5 h reaction time. However, Ca concentrations increased by 28% due to leaching from the slag. PHREEQC was used to predict the possible mineral phases precipitating during treatment. Calculated saturation indices indicated that Fe was removed mainly as goethite, hematite, and amorphous Fe(OH)3; Al was removed as gibbsite and amorphous Al(OH)3; Mn was removed as manganite, hausmannite, and pyrolusite; Mg was removed as Mg(OH)2; and Ca and SO4 were only minimally controlled by gypsum precipitation. Moreover, sulfate removal was increased by the precipitation of alunite, an Al-oxy hydroxysulfate mineral. Other trace elements were either co-precipitated with or adsorbed onto the Fe, Al, and Mn precipitates. Field emission scanning electron microscope analysis of the slag after interaction with the AMD revealed that metals and SO4 precipitated on the slag surface.

Jute geotextile is considered as one of the vital construction material. It is also considered as an eco-friendly material but exhibits poor resistance against biodegradation. In the presen...

Hexavalent chromium is a geochemical element and designated as priority pollutant. It has mutagenic and carcinogenic property and poses a serious threat to both humanity and ecosystem. Despite of toxicity, little dose of chromium acts as micronutrient in the diets of animals and humans and also helps in sugar, protein, and lipid metabolism in mammals. Chromium speciation exists in two states: hexavalent chromium and trivalent chromium, out of which the latter is nontoxic. Health problems associated with high dose of chromium are ulcers, diarrhea, irritation of skin, eye and lung carcinoma, dysfunction of kidney, birth defects, and reduced reproductive health. The lethal dose (LD)50 value for oral toxicity in rats is 50–100 mg kg−1 and 1900–3000 mg kg−1 for Cr (VI) and Cr (III), respectively. Due to high toxicity of Cr (VI) compounds, there is multiplicity of treatment technologies including physico-chemical and biological methods. Physico-chemical methods are high energy demanding, have high operational cost, generate secondary pollutant, and sometimes have lesser efficiency due to high metal concentration and interferences. In contrast to physciochemical method, bioremediation of Cr (VI) reduction is operated at low cost, and less energy is required with high efficiency of reduction, no health and environmental hazards. Microorganisms involved in remediation metabolize the chemicals via enzyme-catalyzed pathway converting into harmless compounds and often use compounds as a source of their growth. Despite of all these methods, some green technologies and modification in these techniques also proved to be effective in chromium reduction. This chapter deals with occurrence and fate of chromium, speciation, various treatment technologies, mechanism of reduction and their advantages-disadvantages, pilot-scale studies, and future perspectives in remediating toxic hexavalent chromium.

Freshwater quality and quantity are some of the fundamental requirements for sustaining human life and civilization. The Water Quality Index is the most extensively used parameter for determining water quality worldwide. However, the traditional approach for the calculation of the WQI is often complex and time consuming since it requires handling large data sets and involves the calculation of several subindices. We investigated the performance of artificial intelligence techniques, including particle swarm optimization (PSO), a naive Bayes classifier (NBC), and a support vector machine (SVM), for predicting the water quality index. We used an SVM and NBC for prediction, in conjunction with PSO for optimization. To validate the obtained results, groundwater water quality parameters and their corresponding water quality indices were found for water collected from the Pindrawan tank area in Chhattisgarh, India. Our results show that PSO–NBC provided a 92.8% prediction accuracy of the WQI indices, whereas the PSO–SVM accuracy was 77.60%. The study’s outcomes further suggest that ensemble machine learning (ML) algorithms can be used to estimate and predict the Water Quality Index with significant accuracy. Thus, the proposed framework can be directly used for the prediction of the WQI using the measured field parameters while saving significant time and effort.