Investigating the Potential of Fusarium solani and Phanerochaete chrysosporium in the Removal of 2,4,6-TNT.

Past and recent applications of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in military and civilian industries have led to contamination of soil and marine ecosystems. Among various TNT remediation techniques, biological remediation is widely accepted for its sustainability, low cost, and scalable applications. This study was designed to isolate a fungus strain from a TNT-contaminated soil to investigate its tolerance to and potential for removal of TNT. Thus, a soil column with a history of periodic TNT amendment was used to isolate dominant strains of fungi Fusarium solani isolate, which is not commonly reported for TNT mineralization and was found predominant in the subsurface layer of the TNT-amended soil. F. solani was investigated for TNT concentration tolerance at 30, 70, and 100 mg/L on agar plates and for TNT removal in liquid cultures at the same given concentrations. F. solani activity was compared with that of a reference soil-born fungus that has been intensively studied for TNT removal (Phanerochaete chrysosporium) obtained from the American Type Culture Collection. On agar media, F. solani showed a larger colony diameter than P. chrysosporium at similar TNT concentrations, indicating its high potential to tolerate toxic levels of TNT as found in contaminated sites. In the liquid culture medium, F. solani was able to significantly produce higher biomass than P. chrysosporium in all TNT concentrations. The TNT removal percentage from the liquid culture at the highest TNT concentration of 100 mg/L reached about 85% with F. solani, while P. chrysosporium was no better than 25% at the end of an 84-h incubation period. Results indicate a significant potential of using F. solani in the bioremediation of polluted TNT soils that overcome the high concentration barrier in the field. However, further investigation is needed to identify enzymatic potential and the most effective applications and possible limitations of this method on a large scale.

Pregnant Women's experiences with intimate partner violence one year after the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan.

AIM: To assess the prevalence and compare the levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) before and during the pandemic and to identify the factors that associated with physical IPV among Jordanian pregnant women. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, correlational design. Women were asked to report their experience with IPV twice: during and before the pandemic. METHODS: A convenience sampling technique was used to select pregnant women from National Woman's Health Care Center from 15 April to 1 September 2021. The Domestic Violence Questionnaire Screening Tool (DVQST) was used to assess the levels of IPV. RESULTS: The women (n = 232) who participated in the study experienced considerable levels of IPV before (69% control IPV, 59.90% psychological, 46.10% physical, 43.10% sexual) and during (75.90% control IPV, 64.20% psychological, 46.10% physical, 40.90% sexual) the pandemic. There were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) higher mean DVQST scores for control IPV and psychological IPV during the pandemic (control IPV mean = 9.78, psychological mean = 7.03) versus before the pandemic (control IPV mean = 8.95, psychological mean = 6.62). Woman's educational level, marriage duration, woman's employment status, and level of mutual understanding were inversely associated with physical IPV during the pandemic. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: IPV is a global public health problem and a major violation of human rights. The levels of control IPV and psychological IPV increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the levels of physical and sexual IPV stayed the same. Antenatal screening for IPV is crucial to save women and their offspring from suffering this type of violence.

Attitudes of food consumers at universities towards recycling human urine as crop fertiliser: A multinational survey dataset.

We present here a data set generated from a multinational survey on opinions of university community members on the prospect of consuming food grown with human urine as fertiliser and about their urine recycling perceptions in general. The data set comprises answers from 3,763 university community members (students, faculty/researchers, and staff) from 20 universities in 16 countries and includes demographic variables (age bracket, gender, type of settlement of origin, academic discipline, and role in the university). Questions were designed based on Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour to elicit information about three components of behavioural intention-attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. Survey questions covered perceived risks and benefits (attitudes), perceptions of colleagues (injunctive social norm) and willingness to consume food grown with cow urine/faeces (descriptive social norm), and willingness to pay a price premium for food grown with human urine as fertiliser (perceived behavioural control). We also included a question about acceptable urine recycling and disposal options and assessed general environmental outlook via the 15-item revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale. Data were collected through a standardised survey instrument translated into the relevant languages and then administered via an online form. Invitations to the survey were sent by email to university mailing lists or to a systematic sample of the university directory. Only a few studies on attitudes towards using human urine as fertiliser have been conducted previously. The data described here, which we analysed in "Willingness among food consumers at universities to recycle human urine as crop fertiliser: Evidence from a multinational survey" [1], may be used to further understand potential barriers to acceptance of new sanitation systems based on wastewater source separation and urine recycling and can help inform the design of future sociological studies.

Willingness among food consumers to recycle human urine as crop fertiliser: Evidence from a multinational survey.

Source-separating sanitation systems offer the possibility of recycling nutrients present in wastewater as crop fertilisers. Thereby, they can reduce agriculture's impacts on global sources, sinks, and cycles for nitrogen and phosphorous, as well as their associated environmental costs. However, it has been broadly assumed that people would be reluctant to perform the new sanitation behaviours that are necessary for implementing such systems in practice. Yet, few studies have tried to systematically gather evidence in support of this assumption. To address this gap, we surveyed 3763 people at 20 universities in 16 countries using a standardised questionnaire. We identified and systematically assessed cross-cultural and country-level explanatory factors that were strongly associated with people's willingness to consume food grown using human urine as fertiliser. Overall, 68% of the respondents favoured recycling human urine, 59% stated a willingness to eat urine-fertilised food, and only 11% believed that urine posed health risks that could not be mitigated by treatment. Most people did not expect to pay less for urine-fertilised food, but only 15% were willing to pay a price premium. Consumer perceptions were found to differ greatly by country and the strongest predictive factors for acceptance overall were cognitive factors (perceptions of risks and benefits) and social norms. Increasing awareness and building trust among consumers about the effectiveness of new sanitation systems via cognitive and normative messaging can help increase acceptance. Based on our findings, we believe that in many countries, acceptance by food consumers will not be the major social barrier to closing the loop on human urine. That a potential market exists for urine-fertilised food, however, needs to be communicated to other stakeholders in the sanitation service chain.

Photocatalytic inactivation of E. coli in surface water using immobilised nanoparticle TiO2 films.

Photocatalysis is a promising method for the disinfection of potable water in developing countries where solar irradiation can be employed, thus reducing the cost of treatment. In addition to microbial contamination, water normally contains suspended solids, dissolved inorganic ions and organic compounds (mainly humic substances) which may affect the efficacy of solar photocatalysis. In this work the photocatalytic and photolytic inactivation rates of Escherichia coli using immobilised nanoparticle TiO2 films were found to be significantly lower in surface water samples in comparison to distilled water. The presence of nitrate and sulphate anions spiked into distilled water resulted in a decrease in the rate of photocatalytic disinfection. The presence of humic acid, at the concentration found in the surface water, was found to have a more pronounced affect, significantly decreasing the rate of disinfection. Adjusting the initial pH of the water did not markedly affect the photocatalytic disinfection rate, within the narrow range studied.