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Treated wastewater (TWW) use represents a strategic prospect for sustainable agricultural development in water-scarce countries. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of adopting an innovative nozzle and irrigation management support (SIM) to promote the cultivation of olive trees under TWW in Morocco. The study involved 4-year-old olive trees irrigated according to the water requirement estimated by both the SIM model and the FAO56 method. The results showed that neither agronomic and physiological parameters nor leaves were affected by irrigation with TWW. However, the soil reacted differently as its alkalinity but witnessed a decrease in the fresh water (FW) treatments. The soil solution electrical conductivity was generally higher for TWW than FW. The savings on water and fertilizer costs generated by the TWW and TWW + SIM treatments are 570€ and 585€/ha, respectively, and the adoption of the two innovations generates additional net benefits equal to 45,000€, while to the nozzle with TWW alone, additional net benefits were observed that is 42,000€. A minimum increase in return of only 0.6% is needed to cover investment costs over the 30-year life of the project and the investment could be profitable even with a decrease in return of 48%.

Soil hydraulic and hydrodispersive properties are necessary for modeling water and solute fluxes in agricultural and environmental systems. Despite the major efforts in developing methods (e.g., laboratory-based, pedotransfer functions), their characterization at applicative scales remains an imperative requirement. Accordingly, this paper proposes a noninvasive in situ method integrating electromagnetic induction (EMI) and hydrological modeling to estimate soil hydraulic and transport properties at the plot scale. To this end, we carried out two sequential water infiltration and solute transport experiments and conducted time-lapse EMI surveys using a CMD Mini-Explorer to examine how well this methodology can be used to (i) monitor water content dynamic after irrigation and to estimate the soil hydraulic van Genuchten–Mualem parameters from the water infiltration experiment as well as (ii) to monitor solute concentration and to estimate solute dispersivity from the solute transport experiment. We then compared the results with those estimated by direct time domain reflectometry (TDR) and tensiometer probe measurements. The EMI significantly underestimated the water content distribution observed by TDR, but the water content evolved similarly over time. This introduced two main effects on soil hydraulic properties obtained by the two methods: (i) similar water retention curve shapes, but underestimated saturated water content from the EMI method, resulting in a scaled water retention curve when compared with the TDR method; the EMI-based water retention curve can be scaled by measuring the actual saturated water content at the end of the experiment with TDR probes or by weighing soil samples; (ii) almost overlapping hydraulic conductivity curves, as expected when considering that the shape of the hydraulic conductivity curve primarily reflects changes in water content over time. Nevertheless, EMI-based estimations of soil hydraulic properties and transport properties were found to be fairly accurate in comparison with those obtained from direct TDR measurements and tensiometer probe measurements.

The term non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) refers to a group of organic compounds with scarce solubility in water. They are the products of various human activities and may be accidentally introduced into the soil system. Given their toxicity level and high mobility, NAPLs constitute a serious geo-environmental problem. Contaminant distribution in the soil and groundwater contains fundamental information for the remediation of polluted soil sites. The present research explored the possible employment of time domain reflectometry (TDR) to estimate pollutant removal in a silt-loam soil that was primarily contaminated with a corn oil as a light NAPL and then flushed with different washing solutions. Known mixtures of soil and NAPL were prepared in the laboratory to achieve soil specimens with varying pollution levels. The prepared soil samples were repacked into plastic cylinders and then placed in testing cells. Washing solutions were then injected upward into the contaminated sample, and both the quantity of remediated NAPL and the bulk dielectric permittivity of the soil sample were determined. The above data were also used to calibrate and validate a dielectric model (the α mixing model) which permits the volumetric NAPL content (θNAPL; m3 m−3) within the contaminated sample to be determined and quantified during the different decontamination stages. Our results demonstrate that during a decontamination process, the TDR device is NAPL-sensitive: the dielectric permittivity of the medium increases as the NAPL volume decreases. Moreover, decontamination progression can be monitored using a simple (one-parameter) mixing model.

Contamination of soils with non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPL) constitutes a serious geo-environmental problem, given the toxicity level and high mobility of these organic compounds. To develop effective decontamination methods, characterisation and identification of contaminated soils are needed. The objective of this work is to explore the potential of dielectric permittivity measurements to detect the presence of NAPLs in soils. The dielectric permittivity was measured by Time Domain Reflectometry method (TDR) in soil samples with either different volumetric content of water ( w) and NAPL ( NAPL) or at different stages during immiscible displacement test carried out with two different flushing solutions. A mixing model proposed by Francisca and Montoro, was calibrated to estimate the volume fraction of contaminant present in soil. Obtained results, showed that soil contamination with NAPL and the monitoring of immiscible fluid displacement, during soil remediation processes, can be clearly identified from dielectric measurements.

This paper deals with the issue of monitoring the spatial distribution of bulk electrical conductivity, σb, in the soil root zone by using electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensors under different water and salinity conditions. To deduce the actual distribution of depth-specific σb from EMI apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) measurements, we inverted the data by using a regularized 1-D inversion procedure designed to manage nonlinear multiple EMI-depth responses. The inversion technique is based on the coupling of the damped Gauss–Newton method with truncated generalized singular value decomposition (TGSVD). The ill-posedness of the EMI data inversion is addressed by using a sharp stabilizer term in the objective function. This specific stabilizer promotes the reconstruction of blocky targets, thereby contributing to enhance the spatial resolution of the EMI results in the presence of sharp boundaries (otherwise smeared out after the application of more standard Occam-like regularization strategies searching for smooth solutions). Time-domain reflectometry (TDR) data are used as ground-truth data for calibration of the inversion results. An experimental field was divided into four transects 30 m long and 2.8 m wide, cultivated with green bean, and irrigated with water at two different salinity levels and using two different irrigation volumes. Clearly, this induces different salinity and water contents within the soil profiles. For each transect, 26 regularly spaced monitoring soundings (1 m apart) were selected for the collection of (i) Geonics EM-38 and (ii) Tektronix reflectometer data. Despite the original discrepancies in the EMI and TDR data, we found a significant correlation of the means and standard deviations of the two data series; in particular, after a low-pass spatial filtering of the TDR data. Based on these findings, this paper introduces a novel methodology to calibrate EMI-based electrical conductivities via TDR direct measurements. This calibration strategy consists of a linear mapping of the original inversion results into a new conductivity spatial distribution with the coefficients of the transformation uniquely based on the statistics of the two original measurement datasets (EMI and TDR conductivities).

Irrigated agriculture is threatened by soil salinity in numerous arid and semi-arid areas of the world, chiefly caused by the use of highly salinity irrigation water, compounded by excessive evapotranspiration. Given this threat, efficient field assessment methods are needed to monitor the dynamics of soil salinity in salt-affected irrigated lands and evaluate the performance of management strategies. In this study, we report on the results of an irrigation experiment with the main objective of evaluating time-lapse inversion of electromagnetic induction (EMI) data and hydrological modelling in field assessment of soil salinity dynamics. Four experimental plots were established and irrigated 12 times during a 2-month period, with water at four different salinity levels (1, 4, 8 and 12 dS m−1) using a drip irrigation system. Time-lapse apparent electrical conductivity (σa) data were collected four times during the experiment period using the CMD Mini-Explorer. Prior to inversion of time-lapse σa data, a numerical experiment was performed by 2D simulations of the water and solute infiltration and redistribution process in synthetic transects, generated by using the statistical distribution of the hydraulic properties in the study area. These simulations gave known spatio-temporal distribution of water contents and solute concentrations and thus of bulk electrical conductivity (σb), which in turn were used to obtain known structures of apparent electrical conductivity, σa. These synthetic distributions were used for a preliminary understanding of how the physical context may influence the EMI-based σa readings carried out in the monitored transects as well as being used to optimize the smoothing parameter to be used in the inversion of σa readings. With this prior information at hand, we inverted the time-lapse field σa data and interpreted the results in terms of concentration distributions over time. The proposed approach, using preliminary hydrological simulations to understand the potential role of the variability of the physical system to be monitored by EMI, may actually allow for a better choice of the inversion parameters and interpretation of EMI readings, thus increasing the potentiality of using the electromagnetic induction technique for rapid and non-invasive investigation of spatio-temporal variability in soil salinity over large areas.

The effects of human recombinant megakaryocyte growth and development factor (MGDF) (also known as thrombopoietin (TPO)), alone or in combination with other growth factors, on the proliferation and on the clonal growth of clonogenic progenitors from 24 acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) patients were evaluated. A significant proliferative response to MGDF alone (proliferation index > 1.5) was observed in nine of 23 cases; the responding cases belonged to all FAB subtypes. However, the greatest response (proliferation index > 7) was found in one M6 and in one M7 case. MGDF also enhanced interleukin 3 (IL-3), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), c-kit ligand (KL) and FLT3 ligand (FL) stimulated blast cell proliferation. MGDF as a single factor induced or significantly enhanced colony formation by clonogenic precursor cells in 12 of 14 AML cases. MGDF strongly increased KL-induced leukemic colony growth in seven cases, whereas it only moderately enhanced IL-3- or GM-CSF-induced colony growth. The analysis of tyrosine phosphorylated protein(s) upon MGDF stimulation in fresh AML cells was also performed. The results demonstrated a band of approximately 90 kDa phosphorylated protein(s) upon MGDF stimulation in AML responsive cases, but not in unresponsive ones. Taken together the present findings suggest that, in a consistent proportion of AML cases, MGDF stimulates blast cell growth and induces tyrosine protein phosphorylation.

Background Extremely low gestational age neonates (ELGANs, i.e., neonates born before 28 weeks of gestation) are at high risk of developing retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), with potential long-life visual impairment. Due to concomitant anemia, ELGANs need repeated red blood cell (RBC) transfusions. These produce a progressive replacement of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) by adult hemoglobin (HbA). Furthermore, a close association exists between low levels of HbF and severe ROP, suggesting that a perturbation of the HbF-mediated oxygen release may derange retinal angiogenesis and promote ROP. Methods/design BORN (umBilical blOod to tRansfuse preterm Neonates) is a multicenter double-blinded randomized controlled trial in ELGANs, to assess the effect of allogeneic cord blood RBC transfusions (CB-RBCs) on severe ROP development. Recruitment, consent, and randomization take place at 10 neonatology intensive care units (NICUs) of 8 Italian tertiary hospitals. ELGANs with gestational age at birth comprised between 24+0 and 27+6 weeks are randomly allocated into two groups: (1) standard RBC transfusions (adult-RBCs) (control arm) and (2) CB-RBCs (intervention arm). In case of transfusion need, enrolled patients receive transfusions according to the allocation arm, unless an ABO/RhD CB-RBC is unavailable. Nine Italian public CB banks cooperate to make available a suitable amount of CB-RBC units for all participating NICUs. The primary outcome is the incidence of severe ROP (stage 3 or higher) at discharge or 40 weeks of postmenstrual age, which occurs first. Discussion BORN is a groundbreaking trial, pioneering a new transfusion approach dedicated to ELGANs at high risk for severe ROP. In previous non-randomized trials, this transfusion approach was proven feasible and able to prevent the HbF decrease in patients requiring multiple transfusions. Should the BORN trial confirm the efficacy of CB-RBCs in reducing ROP severity, this transfusion strategy would become the preferential blood product to be used in severely preterm neonates. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05100212. Registered on October 29, 2021

Due to a lack of controlled, prospective trials examining the pathophysiology and treatment of catatonia, current guidelines vary regarding how and when to best use antipsychotics in the presence of catatonia and what factors to consider in a thorough risk–benefit analysis. The literature is especially limited in describing the risks and benefits of using long-acting injectable antipsychotics in the presence of catatonia. We describe four cases where patients with preexisting catatonia received long-acting injectable first generation antipsychotics and experienced severe adverse effects (three experienced worsening of catatonia and one experienced neuroleptic malignant syndrome). The evidence base for managing comorbid catatonia and psychosis remains underdeveloped and inconsistent, but there are numerous known risk factors for adverse antipsychotic reactions, which we describe in relation to these cases. Finally, we present best practices to consider when managing comorbid psychosis and catatonia, especially when considering the use of long-acting injectable antipsychotics.