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Reactive media present an alternative to gravel in constructed wetlands and have the potential to sustainably and efficiently remove phosphorus from wastewater. In this study, a full-scale steel slag wetland has been operated for its whole lifecycle at which 1.39 mg P/g media were retained. During its lifecycle, this wetland met strict consents below 0.5 mg P/L for the first 6 months and was operated for 266 and 353 days before the effluent phosphorus concentration rose above the typical consents of 1 and 2 mg P/L, respectively. A detailed analysis of the system demonstrated that the performance was directly associated with the release of materials from the media into the water which in turn affected other critical parameters such as pH. Further analysis of the media suggested that greater understanding was needed concerning the role of carbonates and in particular calcite if steel slag is to be effectively managed for use on constructed wetlands. Importantly, controlled release of calcium oxide from the media surface is required by managing the concerns of pH and vanadium release. HIGHLIGHTS First long-term full-scale study of a BOF steel slag media wetland for P removal.; Phosphorus retention capacity of 1.39 mg P/g media after 782 days of operation.; Low effluent phosphorus (9).; Precipitation of calcite, Mg and Fe minerals likely to influence P removal mechanisms.;

Phosphorus and nutrient recovery from wastewater as mineral salts can support local replenishment of fertilisers and reduce mining, contributing to the circular economy. Wastewater and related streams are rich in nutrients, however; there is need to develop bio-based processes to recover them. This study investigates the fractions of phosphorus (P) used by Brevibacterium antiquum to form struvite biominerals (bio-struvite) in wastewater sludge dewatering liquors. After 72h of incubation, 25.6 mg P/L were recovered as bio-struvite from 12.4 mg P/L organic plus condensed P and 13.2 mg P/L of ortho-phosphate. The potential of sludge dewatering liquors to recover nutrients as struvite was investigated by characterising ten types of sludge liquors (originating from primary, secondary sludge, feed to anaerobic digester and digestate, from 3 types of wastewater treatment plants) for their P fractions together with other parameters relevant for B. antiquum growth. Results indicated that liquors obtained from primary sludge, feed to anaerobic digesters and digestate were the most suitable to produce bio-struvite, as these were found to frequently have a high content of organic and condensed P, between to 276–732 mg P/L. Liquors, from all the investigated sites, presented a higher potential for bio-struvite production than with conventional struvite precipitation. This study demonstrated that B. antiquum could convert organic and condensed P into bio-struvite, and this opens up a completely new way to recover forms of phosphorus that are not typically available for nutrient recovery in a single process.

Abstract Struvite production mediated by bacteria has opened up a new route for phosphorus recovery from wastewater streams but its application to digested sludge dewatering liquors is not yet well understood. This study investigates the growth and biological struvite production of selected bacteria in wastewater liquors with pHs between 5.7 to 9.1. The bacterial growth was assessed through flow cytometry. Bacillus pumilus, Halobacterium salinarum and Brevibacterium antiquum remained viable at pHs between 5.7 to 9.1 but B. antiquum was able to grow at pHs between 7.3 to 7.8. Further analysis allowed the identification of crystals as struvite in tests between pH 7.3 to 8.3. All strains were capable of producing struvite at a range of pHs, but the highest production of 135–198 mg/L was observed for pHs between 7.3 to 8.3. At pHs > 8.3, precipitation of struvite and calcium compounds was observed in inoculated and non-inoculated tests. This study demonstrates that biological struvite production can occur at a wide range of pHs, hence significantly different from chemical struvite precipitation that occurs at pH > 8.3, making it a potentially viable process for phosphorus recovery as struvite from wastewater streams and sludge liquors without strict pH control.

Prefigurative politics is a resurgent concept, seeking to explain a diverse array of social phenomena, from Occupy Wall Street to car-sharing cooperatives. The driving force behind these activities is said to be a combination of dashed hopes for a better post-Cold War world and the widespread negative social impacts of neoliberal globalization. Although located in the Global South, Southern Africa is not immune to these pressures and processes. Indeed, the region is rife with a number of activities and organisations demonstrating features of prefigurative politics. Taken together, however, it is unlikely that these activities constitute a ‘prefigurative moment’ in the region’s politics. So ubiquitous in theory and practice is the idea of the modern Western state as locus of ‘a better life for all’ that prefigurative impulses are quickly colonized by state-centered, mainstream actors, forces and factors. At present, significant student movements are underway in South Africa, #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, suggesting possibilities for meaningful change not through disengagement from the state, but by directly confronting it in deliberate and coordinated ways. This demonstration of what A.O. Hirschman calls ‘voice’ is dissimilar to the general trends of ‘exit’ or ‘loyalty’ among individuals, groups and communities across the region. While all of these activities are indicative of a strong desire for a better life for all, transformational change in southern Africa requires strategic political thinking and action. Only the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall student protests suggest movement, albeit nascent, in this direction.

Abstract Benjamin Cohen's disciplinary history of international political economy (IPE) begins with the premise that Africa has had little to contribute to this global discipline. Differing from this view, we argue that disciplinary histories such as Cohen's elide the relationship between the discipline and its field. It is only through the juxtaposition of knowledge, power and politics that we can arrive at a fuller historical understanding of theinternational political economy. We further argue that political economy as an intellectual project has been central to the creation of the political economy of southern Africa. In a historical narrative of this idea in this region, we demonstrate that states and markets have remained prisoners of their mainstream intellectual manifestations, although subversive lives of political economy persist in some critical corners.

África Austral se ve enfrentada, de formas novedosas y desafiantes, a la elección entre dos cursos geopolíticos (de acción). Estos se caracterizan por sus diferentes formas de comprender el futuro de las relaciones interestatales y distintas apreciaciones de la problemática de la seguridad en la región. El tradicional marco político trazado por el realismo se centra en responder a las circunstancias y a los hechos de forma mecánica, más que abriendo interrogantes sobre esas difíciles preguntas de primer orden – ese tipo de interrogantes que da lugar a interpretaciones alternativas de la “realidad” y, en consecuencia, a nuevos resultados políticos. Por lo tanto, trataremos de demostrar que atender a las cuestiones de seguridad a través de una mirada nueva es especialmente importante en África del sur, en la medida en que los cambios acontecidos a lo largo del tiempo han abierto prometedoras vías desde las que abordar las necesidades de seguridad inmediatas y futuras de esta región históricamente trágica. Sin un discurso de seguridad nuevo y crítico, los sangrientos conflictos que protagonizaron el pasado de esta región, todavía pueden retornar y marcar su futuro.

The paper explores how the academic study of International Relations (IR) seeks out and develops its ‘publics’ and how these serve to propagate the discipline’s founding purpose. The history of the founding of IR, in the immediate post-First World War years, is discussed. Using a social constructivist approach, the article then tracks how the idea of the ‘international’ emerged in two separate (but closely linked) approaches to understanding social relations at this level of organisation, viz., International Law and International Relations. Throughout, the argument stresses that those who founded IR understood that it was essential to enlist the interest of the ‘public’ if they were to succeed in the founding purpose. Intermittently, references to the discipline’s South African life form are made.

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. (2008), The Three Trillion Dollar War. The TrueCost of the Iraq Conflict. London: Penguin. 311 pages. In April 2008, Paul Wolfowitz admitted that the US was “pretty much cluelesson counterinsurgency” during the first year of the Iraq War. This confession saysmuch about the ongoing war in that country. At that time, it will be remembered,Wolfowitz was the US Deputy Secretary for Defence and together with his boss, thethen Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, was a leading “Neo-Con” (Neo-Conservative) – as this ever more notorious thread of American foreign policythinking has been called.Six years on – and well over a million Americans and Iraqis dead – the truth is,at last, seeping through about the invasion of Iraq, its immediate aftermath and thedrawn-out war.

Fifty years ago,the Natural Sciences and the Humanities were described (byC.P. Snow)as'TwoCultures'. Are they still so? This interview conducted by Peter Vale suggests that they are complementary and are likely to be increasingly so. Edward Ayers is the President of the University o fRichmond. Previously dean of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia, where he began teaching in 1980,Ayers was named the National Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2003. A historian of the American South, Ayers has written and edited ten books. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prizein1992. In the Presence of Mine Enemies, War in the Heart of America 1859 - 1863 won the 2003 Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history and the Beveridge Prize for the best book in English on the history of the Americas since 1492. Ayersisa former president of the US National Council on the Humanities, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Summary: Background: Systemic mastocytosis (SM) diagnosis requires the presence of 3 minor criteria or 1 major and 1 minor criterion according to the WHO 2016 classification. The aim of this study was to characterize patients with 1 or 2 minor SM criteria including KIT 816 mutation and/or aberrant expression of CD2 and/or CD25 on bone marrow (BM) mast cells (MCs), but without MC activation syndrome (MCAS) criteria. Methods: We included eligible patients from two countries diagnosed between 2011 and 2021. These patients are reported herein as monoclonal MC with clinical significance (MMCS). MMCS patients were compared with 432 patients with indolent SM (ISM) and 51 with BM mastocytosis (BMM) from the CEREMAST database. Findings: Overall, 51 patients with MMCS were included. MMCS patients with (n = 29) or without (n = 22) KIT 816 mutation did not differ significantly with regard to the prevalence of anaphylaxis and basal tryptase level. Anaphylaxis, often in the context of hymenoptera venom allergy, was more frequent in MMCS than in ISM (78% vs 35%, respectively; p

Abstract The transcription factors STAT3, STAT5A, and STAT5B steer hematopoiesis and immunity, but their enhanced expression and activation promote acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or natural killer/T cell lymphoma (NKCL). Current therapeutic strategies focus on blocking upstream tyrosine kinases to inhibit STAT3/5, but these kinase blockers are not selective against STAT3/5 activation and frequent resistance causes relapse, emphasizing the need for targeted drugs. We evaluated the efficacy of JPX‐0700 and JPX‐0750 as dual STAT3/5 binding inhibitors promoting protein degradation. JPX‐0700/−0750 decreased the mRNA and protein levels of STAT3/5 targets involved in cancer survival, metabolism, and cell cycle progression, exhibiting nanomolar to low micromolar efficacy. They induced cell death and growth arrest in both AML/NKCL cell lines and primary AML patient blasts. We found that both AML/NKCL cells hijack STAT3/5 signaling through either upstream activating mutations in kinases, activating mutations in STAT3, mutational loss of negative STAT regulators, or genetic gains in anti‐apoptotic, pro‐proliferative, or epigenetic‐modifying STAT3/5 targets. This emphasizes a vicious cycle for proliferation and survival through STAT3/5. Both JPX‐0700/−0750 treatment reduced leukemic cell growth in human AML or NKCL xenograft mouse models significantly, being well tolerated by mice. Synergistic cell death was induced upon combinatorial use with approved chemotherapeutics in AML/NKCL cells.

Abstract Invasive fungal disease (IFD) presents a life-threatening condition in immunocompromised patients, thus often prompting empirical administration of antifungal treatment, without adequate mycological evidence. Over the past years, wide use of antifungal prophylaxis resulted in decreased occurrence of IFD but has contributed to changes in the spectrum of fungal pathogens, revealing the occurrence of previously rare fungal genera causing breakthrough infections. The expanding spectrum of clinically relevant fungal pathogens required the implementation of screening approaches permitting broad rather than targeted fungus detection to support timely onset of pre-emptive antifungal treatment. To address this diagnostically important aspect in a prospective setting, we analyzed 935 serial peripheral blood (PB) samples from 195 pediatric and adult patients at high risk for IFD, involving individuals displaying febrile neutropenia during treatment of hematological malignancies or following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Two different panfungal-PCR-screening methods combined with ensuing fungal genus identification by Sanger sequencing were employed. In the great majority of PB-specimens displaying fungal DNAemia, the findings were transient and revealed fungi commonly regarded as non-pathogenic or rarely pathogenic even in the highly immunocompromised patient setting. Hence, to adequately exploit the diagnostic potential of panfungal-PCR approaches for detecting IFD, particularly if caused by hitherto rarely observed fungal pathogens, it is necessary to confirm the findings by repeated testing and to identify the fungal genus present by ensuing analysis. If applied appropriately, panfungal-PCR-screening can help prevent unnecessary empirical therapy, and conversely, contribute to timely employment of effective pre-emptive antifungal treatment strategies.