Effect of phosphogypsum addition in the composting process on the physico-chemical proprieties and the microbial diversity of the resulting compost tea

Phosphoric acid production and olive oil production are among the most important economical sectors in Tunisia. However, they generate huge amounts of wastes (phosphogypsum, olive mill waste water, and olive pomace). In a previous study, we used phosphogypsum (PG), in co-composting with organic wastes. Three composts were produced; their PG content was of 0 (AT), 10 (A10), and 30% (A30). In the present study, we focused on their derived compost teas. The physico-chemical characterization of the different compost teas showed that those from A10 and A30 composts presented higher P and Ca contents than that from control one (AT). The microbial characterization using DGGE showed a noticeable microbial diversity in the different compost teas and that the addition of 10% and 30% PG in the compost had different effects on the compost tea microbial diversity. The identification results showed that the addition of 10 and 30% of PG did not affect the presence of PGPR (plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) and fungal soil antagonists in the compost teas. Two PGPRs were isolated from AT and A30 compost teas, and their effect on the growth of potato plants in vitro was evaluated.

Effect of compost tea containing phosphogypsum on potato plant growth and protection against Fusarium solani infection

Three composts made of industrial wastes were prepared by mixing olive oil mill waste water (OMW), olive pomace, coffee grounds, and phosphogypsum (0, 10, and 30%). Potato plants (Solanum tuberosum) cultivated in a greenhouse were used to screen compost tea suppressive ability. All compost tea treatments inhibited Fusarium solani growth and improved plant growth and response to F. solani infection. The antagonistic effects of the different treatments were associated with a marked increase of the antioxidant enzymes and PR (pathogenesis related) protein expression and a decrease of disease severity. These results also showed that plant growth and disease suppression were improved by application of phosphogypsum-supplemented compost teas (A10 and A30). This enhancement can be attributed to the influence of phosphogypsum on nutrient elements and microbial diversity in the resulting compost teas.

Effect of the phosphogypsum amendment of saline and agricultural soils on growth, productivity and antioxidant enzyme activities of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of phosphogypsum (PG) amendment on the physiochemical proprieties of saline and agricultural soils along with the growth, productivity and antioxidant enzyme activities of tomato plants ( Solanum lycopersicum L.) grown on the amended soils under controlled conditions. Obtained results showed that the amendment of saline soil (H) by PG induced a decrease in pH as well as in electrical conductivity. However, for the non saline soil (MC), there was a decrease in pH associated with an increase in electrical conductivity. For both soils, PG amendment led to an increase in Calcium (Ca) and sodium (Na), and a decrease in potassium (K) in plant tissues. Cadmium (Cd), Zinc (Zn) and Chromium (Cr) contents in different parts of plants increased in proportion with PG concentration in the soils. Apart from Cd, all the analyzed metals in tomato fruit were found to be below the recommended maximum allowable concentration (MAC). Our results showed that PG application, at doses not exceeding 20%, seems to be beneficial for growth, photosynthetic activity and productivity of tomato plants as well as in decreasing salinity of saline soils. In these conditions, the use of PG could be a promising project for the rehabilitation of marginalized and saline ecosystems with either ornamental or non-fruit species. For both soils, a significant accumulation of MDA in shoots was detected, reflecting cell membrane damage especially when the PG amendment reached 20%. Beyond 20 and 40% PG, tomato plants developed an enzymatic antioxidant defense system in response to salinity and heavy metal stress. However, at 80% PG, enzymes activities were significantly inhibited.

Microbial Diversity in Sulfate-Reducing Marine Sediment Enrichment Cultures Associated with Anaerobic Biotransformation of Coastal Stockpiled Phosphogypsum (Sfax, Tunisia)

Anaerobic biotechnology using sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) is a promising alternative for reducing long-term stockpiling of phosphogypsum (PG), an acidic (pH ~3) by-product of the phosphate fertilizer industries containing high amounts of sulfate. The main objective of this study was to evaluate, for the first time, the diversity and ability of anaerobic marine microorganisms to convert sulfate from PG into sulfide, in order to look for marine SRB of biotechnological interest. A series of sulfate-reducing enrichment cultures were performed using different electron donors (i.e., acetate, formate, or lactate) and sulfate sources (i.e., sodium sulfate or PG) as electron acceptors. Significant sulfide production was observed from enrichment cultures inoculated with marine sediments, collected near the effluent discharge point of a Tunisian fertilizer industry (Sfax, Tunisia). Sulfate sources impacted sulfide production rates from marine sediments as well as the diversity of SRB species belonging to Deltaproteobacteria. When PG was used as sulfate source, Desulfovibrio species dominated microbial communities of marine sediments, while Desulfobacter species were mainly detected using sodium sulfate. Sulfide production was also affected depending on the electron donor used, with the highest production obtained using formate. In contrast, low sulfide production (acetate-containing cultures) was associated with an increase in the population of Firmicutes. These results suggested that marine Desulfovibrio species, to be further isolated, are potential candidates for bioremediation of PG by immobilizing metals and metalloids thanks to sulfide production by these SRB.

Node and Hub Data Gathering Architectures for Healthcare Applications based on IEEE 802.15.6 Standard

In this paper, the authors present a Node Management Entity (NME) and a Hub Management Entity (HME) architectures based on the Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) standard. The proposed HME and NME combine cross and modular design architecture to ensure network reliability and enhance the WBAN Quality of Service (QoS). Furthermore, the authors propose an Adaptive Two-hop Routing protocol, termed ATR, a simple but yet efficient algorithm to provide reliable data dissemination in WBANs. The proposed ATR is evaluated under layered architecture and NME and HME entities. Simulation results show that both entities perform well 802.15.6 standard and WBAN QoS requirements than layered architecture.

A Robust Iris Feature Extraction Approach Based on Monogenic and 2D Log-Gabor Filters

This article suggests an enhancement of the Masek circle model approach usually used to find a trade-off between modeling complexity, algorithm accuracy, and computational time, mainly for embedded systems where the real-time aspect is a high challenge. Moreover, most commercialized systems (Aoptix, Mkc-series, IriScan, etc.) today frame iris regions by circles. This work led to several novelties: first, in the segmentation process, the corneal reflection removal method based on morphological reconstruction and pixel connectivity was implemented. Second, the picture size reduction was applied according to nearest-neighbor interpolation. Third, the image gradient of the convolved-reduced picture was then generated using four proposed matrices. Fourth, and to reduce the complexity of the traditional method for the detection of the top and lower eyelids, a new method based on the Radon transform and the least squares fitting method was applied. Fifth, eyelashes were detected via the diagonal gradient and thresholding method. Monogenic signal was used in the feature extraction process. Finally, two distance measures were selected as a metric for recognition. Our experimental results using CASIA iris database V3.0 reveal that the proposed method provides a high performance in terms of speed and accuracy. Using dissimilarity modified Hamming distance, the accuracy of iris recognition was improved, with a false acceptance rate equal to 3% and a speed at least eight times as compared with the state of the art.

A Survey of Routing Protocols in Wireless Body Area Networks for Healthcare Applications

Recent advances in electronics and integrated circuits have fostered the development of small and intelligent medical sensors and actuators that are wearable or implementable inside the human body. The main function of these devices is to collect patient’s physiological parameters and forward them to the medical center in an efficient and reliable way. Therefore, routing is a non-trivial task in wireless body area networks (WBAN); sensing the importance of routing in WBAN and the availability of a significant body of literature on this topic are the main motivations that encourage the study and examination of routing mechanisms. This paper proposes WBAN routing approaches. It outlines the design challenges for WBAN routing protocols and sketches out the communication architecture of this type of network. The authors’ main contribution is the classification of the routing techniques into six main categories, which corresponds to thermal aware routing protocols, cluster based routing protocols, cross layers based routing protocols, quality of service (QoS) aware routing protocols, and delay tolerant aware routing protocols. The advantages and performance issues of each routing technique are highlighted. This paper is useful for researchers to make enhancements to the future design of WBAN routing protocols and algorithms.

QoS Concepts and Architecture Over Wireless Body Area Networks for Healthcare Applications

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) applications have emerged as one of the most recent research areas of wireless sensor networks. Lots of research is improving QoS factors in sensor networks. However, QoS requirements vary from application to application, WBAN applications are very sensitive, and QoS issues in WBAN need major concern and focus. This paper outlines the WBANs QoS requirements and factors and reviews with emphasis on their strengths some medium access mechanisms that response to some QoS challenges. Moreover, the authors have defined and specified a QWBAN MAC protocol that can allow the integration of QoS architecture over WBAN. A set of QoS modules such as admission control (CAC), bandwidth allocation and scheduling are discussed. Besides that, an integrated QoS architecture is suggested for WBAN to support healthcare applications.

A Comprehensive Overview of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN)

In recent years, the wireless body area network (WBAN) has emerged as a new technology for e-healthcare applications. The WBANs promise to revolutionize health monitoring. However, this technology remains in the first stages and much research is underway. Designers of such systems face a number of challenging tasks, as they need to address conflicting requirements. This includes managing the network, the data, while maximizing the autonomy of each network node. Reducing the consumption of a node, the management of network resources and security insurance are therefore major challenges. This paper presents a survey of body area networks including the WBANs challenges and -architecture, the most important body sensor devices, as well as sensor board hardware and platforms. Further, various applications of WBANs in the medical field are discussed, as well as wireless communications standards and technologies. The newest researches related to WBANs at physical and MAC layers are presented. Finally the paper identifies data security and privacy in WBANs as well as open research issues.

[Sifting through the results, a proposal for a new concept of outcome measurement. In connection with a series of 72 carpal tunnel endoscopic releases]

We present a new concept in outcome measurement namely "sifting", which we demonstrate in a series of endoscopic carpal tunnel releases on 72 patients. Each patient is evaluated by considering three groups of criteria. The criteria in the first group are evaluated by the patients themselves (self-evaluation), those in the second group are evaluated by a medical observer (clinical examination) and those in the third group are evaluated by the community (socio-professional aspects). We consider that the global outcome result is good only if it is good at the same time from the point of view of the patient himself, from the point of view of the medical observer and from the point of view of the community. The originality of this "sifting" concept consists in sorting the global outcomes according to a principle of elimination. When the global outcome of each patient is passed through the sieve, this total result is considered as "poor" if only one of the three groups is noted as having a bad result. By applying this original principle to our series, we obtained 11 bad self-evaluated results (reduction in the preoperative DASH lower than 10), 6 bad clinical results (persistence of awkward paraesthesiae) and 1 bad socio-professional result (absence of return to work). After sifting all the patients the poor results represented 14 patients (19 %). It seems to us that this sifting principle represents an advance compared to existing evaluation forms, which do not independently consider these three points of view, and which provide a total score by means of arithmetic operations with arbitrary coefficients.

Oral enoximone as a substitute for intravenous catecholamine support in end-stage congestive heart failure

We performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled study to determine whether oral enoximone would aid weaning dobutamine-dependent patients. Twenty-four patients 64 +/- 10 years, with an echocardiographic ejection fraction of 0.20 +/- 0.06, and receiving maximal therapy were studied. After failure of dobutamine weaning, a dobutamine infusion was set up at 10 micrograms.kg-1.min-1 for 48 h. Oral enoximone (100 mg t.i.d.) or placebo was added from D0 for the next 28 days, while the dobutamine dosage was progressively decreased after D4 and eventually stopped at D7. The patients were then followed-up for 21 days (i.e. until enoximone administration had continued for 28 days). In the placebo group, two patients suffered a relapse of congestive heart failure (CHF) before D4, six patients withdrew during dobutamine tapering (five with a relapse of CHF and one with septic shock) and two during follow-up (one with a relapse of CHF and one with sustained ventricular tachycardia). In the enoximone group, three patients withdrew during dobutamine tapering (two with a relapse of CHF, one with a cutaneous rash). Four patients on placebo and nine receiving enoximone could be weaned from dobutamine, P < 0.05. Echocardiographic LV ejection fraction significantly increased and Doppler-derived indexes of systolic function tended to increase when enoximone but not placebo was associated with dobutamine. Oral enoximone might be helpful in weaning patients with end-stage congestive heart failure from i.v. dobutamine.