Petrochemical wastewater treatment with a pilot-scale bioaugmented biological treatment system

In solving the deterioration of biological treatment system treating petrochemical wastewater under low temperatures, bioaugmentation technology was adopted by delivering engineering bacteria into a pilot-scale two-stage anoxic-oxic (A/O) process based on previous lab-scale study. Experimental results showed that when the concentrations of COD and NH4 -N of the influent were 370~910 mg/L and 10~70 mg/L, the corresponding average concentrations of those of effluent were about 80 mg/L and 8 mg/L respectively, which was better than the Level I criteria of the Integrated Wastewater Discharge Standard (GB8978-1996). According to GC-MS analysis of the effluents from both the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and the pilot system, there were 68 kinds of persistent organic pollutants in the WWTP effluent, while there were only 32 in that of the pilot system. In addition, the amount of the organics in the effluent of the pilot system reduced by almost 50% compared to that of the WWTP. As a whole, after bioaugmentation, the organic removal efficiency of the wastewater treatment system obviously in- creased.     

Neuropsychological treatment of dyslexia: does type of treatment matter?

In this study, 123 children with a diagnosis of developmental dyslexia were assigned to different treatment groups, either variations of Bakker's intervention program based on the balance model or a control, a specific reading training group. Thorough cognitive and neuropsychological assessment allowed determination of the subtype of dyslexia according to the balance model and the neuropsychological profile with respect to reading and spelling abilities, verbal memory, and phonemic awareness. Characteristics of hemisphere-specific stimulation were systematically manipulated in an effort to shed light on the bases and mechanisms of reading improvement. It was shown that the effects of treatment vary according to type of dyslexia and that the different intervention programs have differential effects on reading-related neuropsychological functions. Since opposite effects can be produced by the same type of treatment in different dyslexia subtypes, the results of the study suggest that accurate classification of subtype on the base of reading and reading-related variables is advantageous for an optimal planning of the therapy.     

Which juvenile crime victims get mental health treatment?

OBJECTIVE: To explore factors that facilitate the receipt of mental health treatment among juvenile crime victims. METHOD: Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 157 caretakers whose children had suffered a serious sexual or physical assault in the previous year. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of caretakers had thought about getting professional counseling for their child victims, and 20% of the child victims actually received it. But half of the families who thought about it did not follow through on their consideration. Moreover, nearly half of those victimized children who actually received counseling did so without their families reporting that they had considered it in advance. The level of symptoms and parent-child relationship factors were related to considering counseling which was in turn strongly related to actually getting counseling. Other factors were independently related to receiving counseling, such as the victimization occurring at school and the victim being perceived as at fault to some degree. Advice to get counseling and medical insurance also played roles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested two pathways to counseling. One occurred via direct parental concern, and was associated with such variables as parental perceptions that the child was depressed or withdrawn or that the parent-child relationship had been negatively affected. The other pathway occurred independent of parental concern, most likely via school interventions, because this counseling was in conjunction with school victimizations.     

Removal of cyclops in pre-oxidizing cooperation water treatment process

Zooplankton cyclops propagates profusely in waterbody, cannot be effectively inactivated by conventional disinfec- tion process, and becomes a troublesome drinking water treatment problem. In this work, the qualitative and quantitative ex- perimental studies were carried out on inactivation of zooplankton cyclops using oxidants, such as chlorine (Cl2), chlorine dioxide (ClO2), ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), ozone/hydrogen peroxide (O3/H2O2), chloramines (Cl2-NH3) and potassium permanganate (KMnO4). The influences of various factors include different oxidant dosages, organic substance contents and pH values. The results showed that currently available oxidants used all might inactivate cyclops in some extent. According to the experimental results, chlorine dioxide, ozone, ozone/hydrogen peroxide and chloramines can be selected as effective oxidants for inactivating cyclops because of their strong inactivation abilities. Then the synergic removal effects on cyclops with ozone, ozone/hydrogen peroxide pre-oxidation followed by conventional water treatment processes were investigated. The results showed that ozone and ozone/hydrogen peroxide pre-oxidation can inactivate cyclops effectively, which then can be removed thoroughly by conventional water treatment processes. Cyclops cannot appear in water after filtration with 1.65 mg/L of ozone and 6 mg/L of hydrogen peroxide, with the inactivation rate being 62% before conventional water treatment processes. Cyclops cannot appear in water after filtration with 1.8 mg/L of ozone, with the inactivation rate being 50% before conventional water treatment processes. For different oxidants, when removal rate was the best, the inactivation rate was not the same. These results may pro- vide reference and model for actual waterworks.     

Removal and transformation of organic matter during soil-aquifer treatment

This study investigated the removal and transformation of organic matter through laboratory-scale soil-aquifer treatment (SAT) soil columns over a 110-day period. Reductions in total organic carbon (TOC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC), nonbiodegradable dissolved organic carbon (NBDOC) and absorbance of ul-traviolet light at 254 nm (UV-254) averaged 71.46%, 68.05%, 99.31%, 33.27% and 38.96% across the soil columns, respectively. DOC/TOC ratios increased slightly with depth while BDOC/DOC ratios showed a converse trend. DOC exiting the soil-column system contained only a very small biodegradable fraction. SAT decreased the concentration of DOC present in feed water but increased its aromaticity, as indicated by specific ultraviolet light absorbance (SUVA), which increased by 50%～115% across the soil columns, indicating preferential removal of non-aromatic DOC during SAT. Overall, laboratory-scale SAT reduced triha-lomethane formation potential (THMFP), although specific THMFP increased. THMFP reduction was dominated by removal in chloroform. All samples exhibited a common general relationship with respect to weight: chloroform>dichlorobromomethane >dibromochloromethane>bromoform.     

Successful immunological treatment of gallbladder cancer in India Case report

Gallbladder cancer has a poor outcome because of its anatomy and location. Often, the diagnosis is made very late due to its silent course. Post-operated cases do respond to chemotherapy but the survival is counted in months and the quality of life is further hampered due to toxicity of drugs. Immunotherapy holds good promise in non-responding cancers treated by conventional chemotherapeutic agents. Among various therapies, dendritic cell therapy is growing at rapid pace due to its acceptable rationale. It has been utilized in treating successfully resected stage Ill （T2, N1, M0） gallbladder cancer in one of our patients. A 48 years old lady treated with this therapy is free of metastasis with ten doses of autologous dendritic cell vaccine constructed by utilizing resected tumor lysate antigen. She has received ten doses of therapy in 14 months of her treatment. This therapy has proven to be safe and without apparent side effects. The positive clinical response obtained supports that autologous dendritic cell-based immunotherapy is a promising therapeutic approach for refractory gallbladder cancers.     

Characteristics of integrated biological aerated filter in municipal wastewater treatment

In this paper, the characteristics of integrated biological aerated filter （IBAF） applied to municipal wastewater treatment were studied in a pilot scale experiment. The experimental results showed that IBAF has high efficiencies in removing organic pollutants, such as CODCr and SS, in municipal wastewater. The removal rates of CODCr and SS can reach over 90% and 80%, respectively, when COD and SS in the influent are 234 mg L^-1 and 112 mg L^-1, hydraulic retention time （HRT） is 8 h, and the aerated intensity is in the range of （0.5 to 0.6） L m^-2 s^-1.     

Case Report:Diagnosis and treatment of pheochromocytoma in urinary bladder

Objective: To study the diagnosis and treatment of pheochromocytoma in urinary bladder. Methods: Six cases of bladder pheochromocytoma were studied. Four cases showed hypertension, 3 of which were paroxysmal hypertension during urination. Catecholamine (CA) was increased in a case, and vanillymandelic acid (VMA) was increased in 2 cases. Bladder sub- mucosal mass was detected by B-ultrasound in 5 cases (5/5), computerized tomography (CT) in 3 cases (3/3), cystoscopy in 5 cases (5/6). Four cases took α-receptor blocker for 2 weeks, 1 case took β-receptor blocker to decrease heart rate. All patients were treated with surgical operation including 4 partial cystectomies, 2 excavations. Results: Three cases had manifestations including headache, excessive perspiration and hypertension during cystoscopy. Four cases were confirmed before operation. Two cases showed hypertension during operation. All patients were pathologically diagnosed as pheochromocytoma post- operatively. In five cases followed up, blood pressure returned to normal. No patient had relapse and malignancy. Conclusions: Typical hypertension during urination comprised the main symptoms. We should highly suspect bladder pheochromocytoma if a submucosal mass was discovered with B-ultrasound, CT, 131I-MIBG (methyliodobenzylguanidine) and cystoscopy. The deter- mination of CA in urine is valuable for qualitative diagnosis. The preoperative management of controlling blood pressure and expansion of the blood volume are very important. Surgical operation is a good method for effective treatment. Postoperative long-time followed up is necessary.     

Children’s shyness: a suitable case for treatment?

Shy and withdrawn behaviours are cause for concern and have attracted contrasting perspectives. On the one hand, they are regarded as predictive of social anxiety disorder and may benefit from intervention; on the other hand, there are claims that normal behaviours are being pathologised. Evidence is reviewed which suggests that while they represent a risk factor for social anxiety disorder, these patterns of behaviours are only moderately predictive, the large majority of shy children do not go on to meet diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, nor have adults who meet these criteria necessarily been shy as children. A fruitful approach may be to develop effective social and emotional learning programmes to increase children’s understanding of shyness and to aid identification of children at risk.     

Applications of artificial intelligence technology to wastewater treatment fields in China

1 Introduction a Water pollution is quite severe in China. According to the statistical data of The Environmental Protection Ministry of China in 2003, the whole wastewater discharge came to 4.46 × 1014t all over the country. 46.2% in that were industrial wastewater and 53.8% were sewage. In 407 environmental monitoring sections of the seven main rivers of China in 2003, only 38.1% of the tested sections accorded with the the national water quality standard of Grade III, and 29.7% of the …     

Successful immunological treatment of gallbladder cancer in India―Case report

INTRODUCTION In cancer patients, tumor immunity is generally impaired. However, tumor immunity may occur in-vivo as circulating tumor-specific antibodies, with cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) having been identi- fied in cancer patients (Disis et al., 1997; Albert et al., 1998) suggesting that effective anti-tumor responses may be elicited through immunotherapeutic strategies. In recent years, a number of clinical trials have proved the safety and feasibility of using human dendritic cell…     

Ultrasound ablation of pulmonary veins for treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation

INTRODUCTIONMostparoxysmalatrialfibrillationisactivatedbyatrialectopiesoriginatinginthepulmonaryveins.Severalresearchesdemonstratedthatal most 50 %offocalatrialfibrillationoriginatesintheleftsuperiorpulmonaryveinandabout3 0 %intherightsuperiorpulmonaryvei…     

Hyperactivity in children: Is there a treatment of choice?

Recent studies of treatment procedures for hyperactivity, with special focus on methylphenidate treatment, are reviewed from the perspective of three central questions: What is the effect of the treatment? What is the cost of the treatment? Why does the treatment work? The problems in answering the questions satisfactorily are presented.     

Investigation of compaction and sintering behavior of SiC powder after ultra-fine treatment

INTRODUCTION In powder compaction, the characteristics ofthe powder affect the compaction behavior and thequality of the pressed green body and its relativedensity, porosity, pore size distribution, sinteringand the consequent microstructure of the final sin-tered body. Superfine powder is prerequisite forpreparing high performance ceramic materials (Liu,1996; Lange et al., 1983; Lange, 1989). At present,most of the chemosynthesis methods are not suit-able for preparing industrial …     

How does family drug treatment court participation affect child welfare outcomes?

Parental substance use is a risk factor for child maltreatment. Family drug treatment courts (FDTCs) have emerged in the United States as a policy option to treat the underlying condition and promote family preservation. This study examines the effectiveness of FDTCs in North Carolina on child welfare outcomes. Data come from North Carolina records from child protection services, court system, and birth records. Three types of parental participation in a FDTC are considered: referral, enrolling, and completing an FDTC. The sample includes 566 children who were placed into foster care and whose parents participated in a FDTC program. Findings indicate that children of parents who were referred but did not enroll or who enrolled but did not complete had longer stays in foster care than children of completers. Reunification rates for children of completers were also higher. Outcomes for children in the referred and enrolled groups did not differ in the multivariate analyses. While effective substance use treatment services for parents may help preserve families, future research should examine factors for improving participation and completion rates as well as factors involved in scaling programs so that more families are served.     

Study on coagulation property of metal-polysilicate coagulants in low turbidity water treatment

INTRODUCTION Coagulation-flocculation is a major step inthe potable water treatment for removal of colloi-dal impurity. Due to the increase of water pollu-tion, the standards of drinking water supply andwastewater discharge are becoming more and morestringent, and chemical coagulants that are moreefficient in water treatment are more and moreurgently in demand. As well known, the residual Al in potablewater comes from three main sources: natural wa-ter-body, coagulants used in…     

Enhanced primary treatment of low-concentration municipal wastewater by means of bio-flocculant Pullulan

Jar tests were conducted to investigate the performance of enhanced primary treatment processes for low-concentra-tion municipal wastewater from South China by using composite flocculant combined with bio-flocculants Pullulan and poly-aluminum-chloride (PAC). The optimum dosage for composite flocculant and conditions for flocculation were determined. The experimental results indicated that composite flocculant had high efficiency for removing over 95% of turbidity, over 58% of CODCr (chemical oxygen demand determined with potassium dichromate), over 91% of TP (total phosphate), and over 15% of NH3-N. Moreover, it could improve sludge settling and dehydration properties, and decrease the treatment cost.     

Personal Review： Progress and prospect in electro-Fenton process for wastewater treatment

As a novel advanced oxidation process (AOP), electro-Fenton process is powerful for degrading most organic compounds including toxic and non-biodegradable ones, and so has attracted great attention. This paper reviews this process in detail including the mechanism, electrolytic bath, electrode materials, aerations and operation parameters. The application of electro-Fenton method in wastewater treatment is evaluated and summarized. Future work in this field is suggested, and three main directions of new electrode exploitation, development of assisted technologies and mechanistic study should be strengthened.