Nasopharyngeal tuberculosis is a rare occurrence, and primarily involves the proximal part of the Eustachian tube. Mechanical obstruction of the Eustachian tube will affect the pressure discrepancy between the middle ear and the external atmosphere, leading to aural fullness, unilateral hearing disturbance, and otitis media. These conditions can be overlooked or mistakenly diagnosed as ear pathology. We report a case of unilateral hearing loss and tinnitus in a 31-year-old healthy woman that was later confirmed to be tuberculosis of the Eustachian tube. In cases with indicators suggesting a high index of suspicion, a thorough examination of the head and neck regions is especially very important. Once it has been diagnosed, Eustachian tuberculosis can be successfully treated with anti-tuberculosis medications.
Common conventional biological treatment methods fail to decolorize palm oil mill effluent (POME). The present study focused on using the abundant palm oil mill boiler (POMB) ashes for POME decolorization. The POMB ashes were subjected to microwave irradiation and chemical treatment using H2SO4. The resultant adsorbents were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyses. The adsorption efficiency was evaluated at various pH levels (2-8.5), adsorption dosages (3-15 g) in 200 mL, and contact times (1-5 h). The microwave-irradiated POMB-retained ash recorded the highest color removal of 92.31%, for which the best conditions were pH 2, 15 g adsorbent dosage in 200 mL, and 5 h of contact time. At these best treatment conditions, the color concentration of the treated effluent was analyzed using the method proposed by the American Dye Manufacturers Institute (ADMI). The color concentration was 19.20 ADMI, which complies with the Malaysia discharge standard class A. The Freundlich isotherm model better fit the experimental data and had a high R2 of 0.9740. Based on these results, it can be deduced that microwave-irradiated POMB-retained ash has potential applications for POME decolorization via a biosorption process.
Organic loading influences the effectiveness of producing biogas through anaerobic digestion. This study set out to investigate the effect of organic loading on the anaerobic mesophilic digestion of cow dung, the parameters involved in the digestion process and to evaluate the kinetics. Anaerobic digestion of cow dung at different organic loading (gVS/L) of 14 gVS/L, 18gVS/L, 22 gVS/L, 26 gVS/L and 30 gVS/L were investigated. Increasing the organic loading increased the methane yield of the cow dung. The highest cumulative methane yield was observed at 30 gVS/L with 63.42 mL CH4/gVS while the highest biogas yield was reported at 192.53 mL/gVS with the highest methane content of 89%. In addition, the modified Gompertz model equation with an R2 of 0.9980 demonstrated strong consistency and a good fit between predicted and experimental data. The high number of substrates added to the systems when increasing the organic loading increased the λ and slow down the nutrient transport and hydrolysis. This study provides current information on the effects of organic loading on the anaerobic digestion of cow dung in batch mode, including experimental conditions and operational parameters.
This paper discusses the unprecedented microscopic findings of micellar growth in colloidal system (CS) of catalyzed piperidinolysis of ionized phenyl salicylate (PS-). The giant vesicles (GV) was observed under the optical polarization microscope (OPM) at [NaX]=0.1M where X=3-isopropC6H4O-. The conditions were rationalized from pseudo-first-order rate constant, kobs of PS- of micellar phase at 31.1×10-3s-1 reported in previous publication. The overall diameter of GV (57.6μm) in CS (CTABr/NaX/H2O)-catalyzed piperidinolysis (where X=3-isopropC6H4O) of ionized phenyl salicylate were found as giant unilamellar vesicles (GUV) and giant multilamellar vesicles (GMV). The findings were also validated by means of rheological analysis.