BACKGROUND Sugarcane distilleries use molasses for ethanol production and generate large volume of effluent containing high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) along with melanoidin pigment. Melanoidin is a recalcitrant compound that causes several toxic effects on living system, therefore, may be treated before disposal. The aim of this study was to isolate a potent...

Biochemical products have been widely used for treatment of various types of wastewater. The treatment processes with the addition of biochemical products are quite attractive because of their simplicity, minimal use of equipment, they are environmentally friendly and are suitable for the removal of organic pollutants. The purpose of these products is to enhance the activities of beneficial mic...

Sulfur-utilizing autotrophic denitrification relies on an inorganic carbon source to reduce the nitrate by producing sulfuric acid as an end product and can be used for the treatment of wastewaters containing high levels of nitrates. In this study, sulfur-denitrifying bacteria were used in anoxic batch tests with sulfur as the electron donor and nitrate as the electron acceptor. Various medium ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the validity and reliability of the Thai version of the job content questionnaire (TJCQ) both 22-item and 45-item versions. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study encompassed 10,450 employees in Songkhla province, Thailand. A 45-item job content questionnaire (JCQ) was translated and back translated complying with the JCQ usage policy. TJCQ covers seven scales as follows: psyc...

BACKGROUND A union/management system of job evaluation has been in place in the British Columbia (BC) sawmill industry since the late 1960s. This system uses an instrument, very similar to the job content questionnaire (JCQ) to evaluate psychosocial work conditions for sawmill jobs. METHODS Four experienced evaluators, one from the union and three from industry, independently estimated psycho...

Toxic chemical nature of tannery wastewater makes it difficult to be treated by routine biological treatment processes. Microbes, already present in tannery wastewater can adapt to these conditions and degrade the organics in tannery wastewater. In the present contribution, three bacterial electrogenic strains, tolerant to tannery environment, were isolated from soil contaminated with tannery w...

OBJECTIVES To assess the normative need, demand and knowledge of/for/on orthodontic treatment in Karnataka school children who were aged 12-16 years. METHOD A simple random selection of a sample of 1000 students who were aged 12-16 years was made. Informed consents were obtained from each subject. The dental health component (DHC) and aesthetic component (AC) of the index of orthodontic treat...

WSPs are widely used in North America, and offer huge potential for other continental climate regions. The standard design and operating protocol is robust even at high latitudes, but may be conservative elsewhere. A simple model based on first-order kinetics for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is used to consider some alternative design and operating protocols, using long-term daily climate re...

OBJECTIVE To identify psychosocial aspects of work associated with common mental disorders in workers who maintain electrical transmission lines and equipment. METHODS A cross-sectional study was performed with 158 workers in the maintenance sector of an electric power company, in Northeastern Brazil. The main independent variable were the psychosocial aspects of work, measured according to t...

In healthy, non-challenged individuals, the secretion of cortisol typically follows a diurnal profile characterized by a peak in the period following waking (cortisol awakening response) and a gradual decline throughout the day. In addition, cortisol secretion is increased in response to acutely stressful stimuli, particularly stressors involving social evaluation. The current study is the firs...