Isolation of Streptomyces Species from Soil and its Medium Optimization for Microbial Transglutaminase Production by Box-Behnken Design

Transglutaminase are a family of enzymes that catalyze the covalent bond formation between open amine groups. They are widely used in food industries and their demand rises daily. Though they are available in mammalian tissues, fish and plants, the complex separation and purification process led to the search of Microbial Transglutaminase.

Finding a new microbial source of transglutaminase and the medium composition for MTGase production were the purpose of this work. Six Different types of Actinomycetes like strains were isolated from soil sample and two of them named PG03 and PG06 were selected based on their ability to produce 23 mg/ml and 21 mg/ml MTGase enzyme respectively.

Strain PG03 was chosen for further studies and it was found to be a Streptomyces species. Standard enzyme production media composition is modified and tested to facilitate the optimized MTGase activity.

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Large Surface Storage Facility for Liquid Radioactive Waste

The Techa Cascade of water reservoirs (TCR) is one of the most environmentally challenging facilities resulted from FSUE “PA Mayak” operations. Its reservoirs hold over 360 mln m3 of liquid radioactive waste with a total activity of some 5∙1015 Bq which is about 0.1% of the total radioactivity released from the Chernobyl accident and occupy an area equivalent to roughly the size of 7,000 football fields.

A set of actions implemented under a special state program involving the development of a strategic plan aimed at complete elimination of TCR challenges (Strategic Master-Plan for the Techa Cascade of water reservoirs) resulted in considerable reduction of potential hazards associated with this facility.

The report summarizes the key elements of this master-plan: defining the facility’s final state, feasibility study of the main strategies aimed at its attainment, evaluation of relevant long-term action plans, development of computational tools enabling the long-term forecast of TCR behavior depending on various engineering solutions and different weather conditions.

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Modeling Jupiters Synchrotron Emission from Relativistic Electron Trapped in Jovian Magnetosphere

The relativistic electron energy in few MeV range, trapped in the Jovian magnetosphere emit electromagnetic waves in wide radio frequency domain which escapes the generation region and propagates towards the Earth’s atmosphere.

The flux density of the emission is a function of the electron distribution (spatial and angular), the energy spectrum of the electron, the magnetic field strength and configuration. The measured spectral power density of high energetic electrons and its distribution with frequency can be used to find out the distribution of relativistic electrons in the inner magnetosphere having the range LJ =3 Jovian radius.

In present communication the variation of radiated power per electron with energy through the synchrotron radiation process have been shown and discussed. The simulated flux density is compared with corresponding recent emitted radio spectrum data available from Cassinni flyby.

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Viability of Ulpotha Micro-cascade Rehabilitation with its Indigenous Irrigation Systems-Sri Lanka

The main purpose of this article is to study the viability of Ulpotha micro-cascade rehabilitation with its traditional irrigation system. Rehabilitation of Ulpotha with its natural resources was started on pilot basis in 2005 and completed in the year 2010.

This is the high time to study the impacts of Ulpotha rehabilitation with its traditional irrigation system. Extensive studies on traditional irrigation practices were commenced in 2013 and more positive impacts of the Ulpotha rehabilitation and the use of traditional irrigation were noted.

The traditional irrigation system is more appropriate for this location as paddy is the main cultivation in Yala and Maha. Traditional flood irrigation also supports environment, ecology, biodiversity, agriculture in addition to socio-cultural and religious / spiritual values.

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Role of Cyclonic Storm as Natural Disaster and other Factors on Vulture Mortality in India

Post mortem analyses in vultures across India and its neighboring countries traced diclofenac and its derivative compounds in their carcasses. Therefore, it is inferred that biomagnification of diclofenac from the consumed infected domestic animal carcasses contributes mortality by causing renal failure and hepatic damages in vultures.

However, reports also indicate that both extrinsic environmental and intrinsic cellular causes might also be contributing factors. It offers a debate to confirm whether only diclofenac is the primary cause of vulture mortality versus their susceptibility to microbial pathogens, diseases or physiological conditions, such as oxidative stress due to diclofenac biomagnification.

It is observed that natural disasters such as heavy cyclonic storm which affect arboreal life may be one of the major causes of the death of vultures in some parts of India. Therefore, extrinsic insults such as heavy cyclonic storms are believed to be also contributing factor to affect arboreal life including vultures in some other parts of the world. A perspective is made on the above facts as a cause of catastrophic mortality of vultures in India.

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Adaptive Climate Risk Control of Sustainability and Resilience for Infrastructure Systems

Any challenges are facing our global society that include, for example, natural, technological and human caused threats potentially affecting property and life costing annually hundreds of billions of dollars.

Income disparity that may lead to societal or international conflicts and disorders; Population growths with time‐variant differences in consumption cultures that may potentially be converging towards the high ends of consumption behavior for significant population segments, thereby stressing or threatening our limited resources.

A changing climate and growing populations with significant increases in urbanization,New and emerging technological threats, etc.

Resilience and sustainability as system characteristics are necessary for societal endurance and survival. Enhancing them at the element, network, community, etc. levels could lead to not only massive savings through efficiencies but also through risk reduction and expeditious recovery in case of disasters.

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The Impact of the Natural Hazard Flooding

Flooding is one of the most common natural hazards that produce substantial loss of life and property. Continuous, heavy rainfall with low pressure area affected a large area of Southeastern and Central Europe, resulted in extensive flooding in Croatia and neighboring countries.

The paper presents a review of structural measuresthat were taken to cope with floods in some cities alongthe Sava river in north-east part of Croatia (Slavonia).The aim of this study was to highlight the risks that may expand to major consequences after occurrence of a disaster of this magnitude.

Due to many variables, health authorities pointed the potential health exposure risks (communicable diseases occurrence and spread) according to which recovery phase activities were taken. Flood risk management and post-disaster assessments has high level of development in flood-prone areas in Croatia.

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PERSPECTIVES OF FOREST BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN NORTHEAST INDIA

Forests are major repositories of biodiversity and provide essential goods and services for humanity. Biodiversity loss is a major threat to forest ecosystem and emerging as a great challenge to humanity.

Estimation of biodiversity or biological richness of a region is a difficult task that is an impossible goal without technological inputs. The Northeast India, part of Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, is one of the still relatively undisturbed regions of the world harbouring almost 50% of the flowering plant of the Indian subcontinent.

This region is economically less developed and forests are under tremendous pressure from the anthropogenic influences mainly due to the local traditional shifting (jhum) cultivation practices.

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Oromo Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in Natural Resources Management: Land, Forest, and Water in Focus

This study deals with the Oromo indigenous knowledge and its implication in the practices of natural resources management, with the focus on the natural resources that have been thought as fundamental and integrals of their entire lives: land, forest, and water resources.

The study was conducted among Nole, Maccaa Oromo of West Wallagga. The study of the predominant human-environment relationship, and the indigenous ecological knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples in natural resources and biodiversity conservation have enormous role in understanding the ever-growing environmental problems, and consequent social problems.

Hence, in an effort to understand the cause and magnitude of environmental problems, and to establish prospective measures that would help in solving these social and environmental acute, understanding the community’s worldview and integrated indigenous knowledge that they have been maintained in esteeming and managing the natural resources for healthy coexistence is important.

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A Multistage Technique to Minimize Overestimations of Slope Susceptibility at Large Spatial Scales

Rainfall induced landslides are one of the most frequent natural hazards on slanted terrains. They lead to significant economic losses and fatalities worldwide. Most factors inducing shallow landslides are local and can only be mapped with high levels of uncertainty at larger scales.

This work presents an attempt to determine slope instability using buffer and threshold techniques to downscale large areas and minimize slope uncertainties at local scales, then in a second stage, logistic regression is used to determine susceptibility at large scales. ASTER GDEM V2 is used for topographical characterization of slope and buffer analysis.

Four static parameters (slope angle, soil type, land cover and elevation) for 230 shallow rainfall-induced landslides listed in a comprehensive landslide inventory for the continental United States are examined. A delimiting buffer equivalent to 5, 25 or 50 km is created around each landslide event facilitating the statistical analysis of slope thresholds.

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Climate, Landscape and the Environments of Visceral Leishmaniasis Transmission in India, Using Remote Sensing and GIS

The Indian sub-continent is prone to the occurrences of chronic Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) or Kalaazar, and geographical distribution of disease is endemic in the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala in India.

The world distribution of Kala-azar chronic cases occurring in the countries, such as, Brazil, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sudan, and the 90% of the disease has been mainly affected the children of below 9-15 years old, and it has been causing 50% of the cases turn to become deaths incidents occurred annually in India.

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), a chronic disease caused by Leishmania donovani parasites is transmitted by female phlebotomine sandfly, Phlebotomous argentipes. It has been claimed heavy death toll of human lives in South-east Asia, especially in India.

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Isolation of Streptomyces Species from Soil and its Medium Optimization for Microbial Transglutaminase

Transglutaminase (E.C. 2.3.2.13) are a family of enzymes that catalyze the covalent bond formation between open amine groups. They are widely used in food industries and their demand rises daily. Though they are available in mammalian tissues, fish and plants, the complex separation and purification process led to the search of Microbial Transglutaminase (MTGase).

Finding a new microbial source of transglutaminase and the medium composition for MTGase production were the purpose of this work. Six Different types of Actinomycetes like strains were isolated from soil sample and two of them named PG03 and PG06 were selected based on their ability to produce 23 mg/ml and 21 mg/ml MTGase enzyme respectively. Strain PG03 was chosen for further studies and it was found to be a Streptomyces species. Standard enzyme production media composition is modified and tested to facilitate the optimized MTGase activity.

Strategies like finest nitrogen and carbon source selection, revealing the key ingredients of media by full factorial design and their optimal concentration Box-Behnken design were adopted. At the 95% confidence level, second order polynomial model was applied to fit the research outcome.

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Insights on the Global Climatic Changes and their Discernible Impacts

Global climate change is a human-induced alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and thus, the atmospheric chemistry, with its subsequent domino effects on the regimes of the climatic factors. The current volume no 7 and issue 7 published 4 research articles strictly in line with the scope of the journal.

Nikolopoulos et al.derived critical information from significant earthquakes data spanning 2009-2015 with few noteworthy seismic events at shallow depths. Their findings state that the analyses of the rescaled range (R/S) and the wavelet-based spectral fractal should be employed in sequence to enhance the precursory value of results.

Moja et al. characterized the mineral composition and levels of the surface trapped in the dust samples collected from the human settlements located close to asbestos mines of Mpumalanga Province of Ethiopia. The study expressed concerns over the continued presence of asbestos minerals around residential areas.

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