Fundación Pública Andaluza Centro de las Nuevas Tecnologías del Agua

Little is known about pig gene expressions related to dietary fatty acids (FAs) and most work have been conducted in rodents. The aim of this study was to investigate how dietary fats regulate fat metabolism of pigs in different tissues. Fifty-six crossbred gilts (62 ± 5.2 kg BW) were fed one of seven dietary treatments (eight animals per treatment): a semi-synthetic diet containing a very low level of fat (no fat (NF)) and six fat-supplemented diets (ca. 10%) based on barley and soybean meal. The supplemental fat sources were tallow (T), high-oleic sunflower oil (HOSF), sunflower oil (SFO), linseed oil (LO), blend (FB) (55% T, 35% SFO and 10% LO) and fish oil (FO) blend (40% FO and 60% LO). Pigs were slaughtered at 100 kg BW and autopsies from liver, adipose tissue and muscle semimembranousus were collected for qPCR. The messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) abundances of genes related to lipogenesis were modified due to dietary treatments in both liver (sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 (SREBP-1), acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACACA) and stearoyl CoA desaturase (SCD)) and adipose tissue (fatty acid synthase (FASN), ACACA and SCD), but were not affected in semimembranousus muscle. In the liver, the mRNA abundances of genes encoding lipogenic enzymes were highest in pigs fed HOSF and lowest in pigs fed FO. In adipose tissue, the mRNA abundances were highest in pigs fed the NF diet and lowest in pigs fed T. The study demonstrated that dietary FAs stimulate lipogenic enzyme gene expression differently in liver, fat and muscles tissues.

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The aim of the present work was the assessment of economic and environmental aspects of decentralized energy-saving wastewater treatment systems. The formulated investment and operation cost functions were adjusted by a power law function. The different wastewater systems serving population settlements between 50 p.e. and 250 p.e., presented associated investment costs varying from €400/p.e. to €200/p.e. and annual operation costs in the range of €70/p.e.– €20/ p.e., respectively. A life cycle analysis approach was used to compare the environmental impact of alternative wastewater treatment systems. The assessment was focused on two energy-saving systems (constructed wetland and slow rate infiltration) and a conventional one (activated sludge process). Low environmental impact of energy-saving wastewater treatment systems was demonstrated, being the most relevant the global warming indicator. Options for reduction of life cycle impacts were assessed including materials used in construction and operation lifetime of the systems. A 10% extension of operation lifetime of constructed wetland and slow rate infiltration systems lead to a 5% and 7% decrease in the abiotic depletion indicator, respectively, and to a 1% decrease in CO2 emissions in both systems. Replacing steel with HDPE in the activated sludge tank resulted in a 1% reduction in CO2 emission and 1% in the abiotic depletion indicator. In the case of the Imhoff tank a 1% reduction in CO2 emissions and 5% in abiotic depletion indicator were observed when concrete was replaced by HDPE. Therefore, considering the huge potential of energy saving wastewater treatment systems, the overall environmental impact of such design alternatives should not be discarded.

A substantial part of the operating costs of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is associated with the management and treatment of the excess sludge generated during the treatment process. Different strategies have been applied for excess sludge reduction, such as the oxic-settling-anaerobic process, the high dissolved oxygen process, the uncoupler-containing activated sludge process, the ozonation-combined activated sludge process, control of sludge retention time and biodegradation of sludge in a membrane-assisted reactor. Chemical uncouplers have been shown to reduce excess sludge production, disassociating the energy coupling between catabolism and anabolism. These metabolic uncouplers may be organic compounds, such as 2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP) or 3,3',4',5-tetrachlorosalicylanilide (TCS), or heavy metals. In this paper, four different chemicals (2,4-DNP, TCS, copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn)) were chosen for short-term tests for studying their ability to reduce sludge yield (Y(x/s)) and, consequently, their potential for reducing excess sludge production. According to the results obtained, only TCS seems to be very effective in reducing sludge production from the activated sludge process. Compared with the control test, Y(x/s) can be reduced by over 30% at 0.8 mg/l TCS. It was also found that the substrate removal capability was not adversely affected by the presence of TCS. Furthermore, an increase in the microbial activity of the system was observed.

It has been shown previously that lipid metabolism is regulated by fatty acids (FA) and that thyroid hormones are important regulators of energy metabolism. The effects of weight, dietary fat level and dietary FA profile on thyroid hormone levels and expression of lipogenic genes and tissue FA composition were studied. Sixty-one crossbred gilts weighing 62 ± 5.2 kg BW average were either slaughtered at the beginning of the trial (n = 5) or fed one of seven diets (n = 8 pigs per diet): a semi-synthetic diet formulated to contain a very low level of fat (NF) and six diets based on barley-soybean meal supplemented with approximately 10% fat of different origin and slaughtered at 100 kg BW. The supplemental fats were tallow, high-oleic sunflower oil, sunflower oil (SFO), linseed oil, fat blend (55% tallow, 35% sunflower oil, 10% linseed oil) and fish oil blend (40% fish oil, 60% linseed oil). In general, the dietary FA profiles altered the FA composition of liver, semimembranosus muscle and adipose tissues. Pigs fed the NF diet had the highest free and total triiodothyronine (T3) values followed by pigs fed SFO. Total T3 levels were higher in pigs at 60 kg than in pigs at 100 kg. Correlations between thyroid hormones and genes encoding enzymes of fat synthesis in adipose tissue (acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACACA), fatty acid synthase and stearoyl CoA desaturase (SCD)) and the large differences in expression of lipogenic genes at different weights (60 and 100 kg BW), suggest a role for thyroid hormones and for T3, in particular, in regulating whole animal fat metabolism, with effects brought about by altered expression of lipogenic genes. Liver sterol receptor element binding protein-1 (SREBP1) mRNA content was affected by dietary treatment (P < 0.001) and was correlated with ACACA and SCD, whereas adipose tissue SREBP1 was not correlated with the mRNA abundance of any lipogenic enzyme. Weight and tissue factors showed greater influence on mRNA abundance of genes related with lipid metabolism than diet and tissue FA composition. In the pig, FA synthesis appear to be of greater magnitude in adipose tissue than in the liver as suggested by the higher expression of lipogenic genes in adipose tissue.

European countries are facing increasing pressures on their water resources despite stringent regulations and systematic efforts on environmental protection. In this context, research and innovation play a strategic role reinforcing the efficiency of water policies. The present study provides a multilevel assessment of research and innovation practices in the field of water resource management in southern European countries and regions (more specifically; Cyprus, Albania, Poitou-Charentes in France, Andalusia in Spain and the North of Portugal). The analysis was based on a strategic framework aimed at gaining an insight of the current constraints, as well as of the existing and future technological solutions for a better water resource management. The triple helix model proved to be a useful analytical framework for assessing the efforts of different groups towards a common goal. The analysis proved the existence of a significant evolution in the use of technological tools to assist decision-making processes in integrated river basin management in all regions. Nevertheless, the absence of formal channels for knowledge and data exchange between researchers and water resource managers complicates the formers involvement in the decision-making process regarding water allocation. Both researchers and consultants emphasize the low availability of data, together with the need to advance on water resource economics as relevant constraints in the field. The SWOT analysis showed similar concerns among the participating regions and provided a battery of effective projects that resulted in the preparation of a Joint Action Plan.

Conventional wastewater treatment technologies are costly and energy demanding; such issues are especially remarkable when small communities have to clean up their pollutants. In response to these requirements, a new variety of nature-based solution, so-called METland ® , has been recently develop by using concepts from Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (MET) to outperform classical constructed wetland regarding wastewater treatment. Thus, the current study evaluates two operation modes (aerobic and aerobic–anoxic) of a full-scale METland ® , including a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted under a Net Environmental Balance perspective. Moreover, a combined technical and environmental analysis using a Net Eutrophication Balance (NEuB) focus concluded that the downflow (aerobic) mode achieved the highest removal rates for both organic pollutant and nitrogen, and it was revealed as the most environmentally friendly design. Actually, aerobic configuration outperformed anaero/aero-mixed mode in a fold-range from 9 to 30%. LCA was indeed recalculated under diverse Functional Units (FU) to determine the influence of each FU in the impacts. Furthermore, in comparison with constructed wetland, METland ® showed a remarkable increase in wastewater treatment capacity per surface area (0.6 m 2 /pe) without using external energy. Specifically, these results suggest that aerobic–anoxic configuration could be more environmentally friendly under specific situations where high N removal is required. The removal rates achieved demonstrated a robust adaptation to influent variations, revealing a removal average of 92% of Biology Oxygen Demand (BOD), 90% of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), 40% of total nitrogen (TN), and 30% of total phosphorus (TP). Moreover, regarding the global warming category, the overall impact was 75% lower compared to other conventional treatments like activated sludge. In conclusion, the LCA revealed that METland ® appears as ideal solution for rural areas, considering the low energy requirements and high efficiency to remove organic pollutants, nitrogen, and phosphates from urban wastewater.

In this paper, we present a new parallel corpus addressed to researchers, teachers, and speech therapists interested in text simplification as a means of alleviating difficulties in children learning to read. The corpus is composed of excerpts drawn from 79 authentic literary (tales, stories) and scientific (documentary) texts commonly used in French schools for children aged between 7 to 9 years old. The excerpts were manually simplified at the lexical, morpho-syntactic, and discourse levels in order to propose a parallel corpus for reading tests and for the development of automatic text simplification tools. A sample of 21 poor-reading and dyslexic children with an average reading delay of 2.5 years read a portion of the corpus. The transcripts of readings errors were integrated into the corpus with thegoal of identifying lexical difficulty in the target population. By means of statistical testing, we provide evidence that the manual simplifications significantly reduced reading errors, highlighting that the words targeted for simplification were not only well-chosen but also substituted with substantially easier alternatives. The entire corpus is available for consultation through a web interface andavailable on demand for research purposes.

Based on experiences about the planning of decentralized wastewater treatment systems for slums of two rural towns in India, the paper asks to what extent affordability for the future users may impede the realization of other sustainability goals. The planning aimed at ensuring economic, social, and environmental sustainability. To this end the planning process promoted the participation of stakeholders and it was supplemented by an in-depth analysis (using novel methods) of the socio-economic situation of the future users. In particular, an approach towards estimating willingness to pay from small samples was developed. Taking all this information into account, planning identified a well-established technology that it is inexpensive, robust, and easy to maintain. The experiences of this planning process may generalize to other developing countries seeking socially acceptable low cost solutions with reasonable pollution reduction for resolving the sanitation crisis.

This paper presents a method for the syntactic simplification of French texts. Syntactic simplification aims at making texts easier to understand by simplifying complex syntactic structures that hinder reading. Our approach is based on the study of two parallel corpora (encyclopaedia articles and tales). It aims to identify the linguistic phenomena involved in the manual simplification of French texts and organise them within a typology. We then propose a syntactic simplification system that relies on this typology to generate simplified sentences. The module starts by generating all possible variants before selecting the best subset. The evaluation shows that about 80% of the simplified sentences produced by our system are accurate.

The production of sludge in biological wastewater treatments is a growing problem worldwide as it entails economic, environmental, and health problems. The oxic‐settling‐anaerobic (OSA) process is one of the techniques that have been developed to reduce the sludge produced in the activated sludge process (ASP). This article reports the feasibility of the application of the OSA process in a nutrient removal system, specifically, in an anoxic–oxic (A) process. The results reveal TN removal in the A + OSA system of 68.84% and 69.91% (for 7 and 11 h of sludge anaerobic exposure time, SAET, respectively) versus 38.02% and 32.47% in the OSA system with similar SAET. The percentage sludge reductions obtained were, respectively, 22.41% and 31.93% in the OSA system and 23.53% and 32.49% in the A + OSA system compared to the sludge produced in the conventional ASP. The study confirms the suitability of the application of the OSA process in a nutrient removal system, as nutrient removal performances are not affected, while at the same time achieving higher sludge reduction . © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 1068–1074, 2018

Respirometry, as used in wastewater treatment, is the measurement and interpretation of the respiration rate of microorganisms in activated sludge. The respiration rate is the amount of the oxygen per unit of volume and time that is consumed by the microorganisms. For a long time respirometry has been recognized as a valuable basis for controlling the activated sludge process. The reason for this is that respiration rate is directly linked to two important biochemical processes that must be controlled in a wastewater treatment plant: biomass growth and substrate consumption. This paper shows different experiments to quantify toxic or inhibitory effects as determined by the toxicity protocol for respirometry. The protocol used was based on the utilization of the respiration of activated sludge to measure and quantify toxic effects of compounds. Our purpose was for both the protection and treatment ability determination of wastewater plants, depending on the problems (e.g. pollution), needs of customers and possibilities for biodegradation of the tested products.

A comprehensive survey of the occurrence of organic compounds in 30 wastewater (WW) effluent samples from 21 urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) from both secondary and tertiary treatments was carried out in the Mediterranean and Atlantic basins of the Andalusia region (south of Spain). For each sample, a total of 226 compounds including pesticides and some transformation products, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phenolic compounds and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were monitored with the aim of evaluating their occurrence in urban WW effluents. Compounds belonging to each class were detected. Among pesticides, insecticides such as clorfenvinphos and diazinon as well as herbicides such as diuron, sebuthylazine, terbuthylazine and terbuthylazine desethyl were the most frequently detected. The ubiquity of some compounds such as fluorene, phenanthrene and pyrene was also demonstrated. The compounds evaluated were detected at low concentrations (in general below 1 μg L(-1)), except 4-tert-octylphenol, which was detected at extremely high concentrations (up to 443 μg L(-1)). PAHs and VOCs were the compounds most frequently detected in the assayed samples, and they are the main sources of contamination in WWTPs, as well as some herbicides and transformation products.

Les enquêtes récentes suggèrent que 40 % d’élèves français rentrent en collège avec des lacunes importantes en compréhension d’un texte écrit, qu’il soit littéraire ou scientifique. La simplification de textes est un moyen pour rendre un texte plus accessible pour un public donné. Depuis toujours, la simplification de textes a intéressé les professionnels de l’enseignement des langues (enseignants, éditeurs) mais, aujourd’hui, elle se développe considérablement dans le domaine du traitement automatique des langues. Dans cet article, nous faisons un point sur la simplification de textes, ce que l’on simplifie et comment. Nous proposons ensuite une typologie linguistique des simplifications et nous montrons que la simplification peut avoir un effet positif sur la fluence et la compréhension des enfants en difficulté de lecture. Enfin, nous discutons les possibilités et les limites d’une simplification automatique.

In 1994-95, sources of heat tolerance were identified in common beans after screened several germplasm and advanced lines nurseries in Choluteca and Nacaome (≤ 50 masl), in the southern region of Honduras. The best heat tolerant genotypes were validated under greenhouse controlled conditions (35/27 °C day/night) in Geneva, New York. Afterward, crosses were made to develop small-red bean lines with heat tolerance and resistance to BGMV and other limiting factors. The F2- F5 segregant populations were evaluated for multiple traits including BGMV, common bacterial blight, angular leaf spot, rust, low fertility conditions, and selected for agronomic performance and commercial value. In 1998, 217 F6 and F7 advanced lines were evaluated in the irrigation district Lempa-Acahuapa (20 masl), in the Pacific region of El Salvador for heat tolerance and BGMV. The same nurseries were evaluated in Liberia, in the Northwest region of Costa Rica, for tolerance to high temperatures; and at Zamorano, Honduras for resistance to common bacterial blight, angular leaf spot and rust. A group of lines were identified having superior yield and adaptation than commercial checks, under high temperature conditions in El Salvador and Costa Rica. Some of these lines were also resistant to BGMV in El Salvador, and moderate resistant to web blight in Costa Rica, and they had excellent agronomic performance and good commercial value.

Lightweight composite materials are the gold standard in aeronautical and aerospace applications due to their strength and low mass. To carry higher payloads and decrease launching costs, nanosatellites lightweight. Additionally, nanosatellites must also resist high thermal radiation loads while working in orbit. Polymer-based composite materials maintain low mass and added reinforcing ceramic fillers contributes to increasing radiation resistance, thus producing composites that meet both requirements. In this work, the effects of γ-alumina (Al2O3) and zinc oxide (ZnO) micro- and nanoparticles on the thermal properties and degradation kinetics of epoxy-based composites were investigated. The effective thermal conductivity improved up to 17.8 % for epoxy/γ-Al2O3 and 27.4 % for epoxy/ZnO. The effective thermal diffusivity values show a monotonic decreasing behavior as a function of the particle concentration for the epoxy/γ-Al2O3 composites; for the epoxy/ZnO composites, no correlation on the effective thermal diffusivity values with the ZnO-content was observed. Both oxide-based ceramic fillers increase the thermal stability of epoxy up to 250 °C; however, γ-Al2O3 decreased the maxima decomposition temperature of the epoxy matrix by 6°C. Zinc oxide did not affect the maxima decomposition temperature but decreased the activation energy of epoxy by ~ 45 %. These results provide a feasible manufacturing method for epoxy-based composite materials (i.e. nanosatellites) where efficient heat transfer, heat resistance, and low mass are required.

European Water Directive 91/271/EEC introduced a series of measures aimed at protecting sensitive areas against the emission of nutrients originating from waste water treatment plants. There are, however, environmental costs associated with achieving the required level of water quality, such as greenhouse gas emissions resulting from energy consumption. The goal of this study is to assess these environmental costs in an enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR)- sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system for a population equivalent (p.e.) of 45 people and compare it to a conventional activated sludge (CAS) system. For that purpose, three major environmental indicators have been estimated: the global warming potential (GWP); eutrophication potential (EP) and power consumption (PC). Moreover, two different functional units, one based on volume (m3) and the other on eutrophication reduction (kg PO4 removed3−), were used to further determine sustainability. In this case study, the 45 p.e. EBPR-SBR showed a GWP of 150 kg CO2/kg PO4 removed3−, an EP of 13.6 equivalent g PO43−/m3 and a PC of 175 kWh/kg PO4 removed3−. These values are below those obtained for a CAS system.

The fatigue strength evaluation and fracture behavior for a dual phase steel-AA6061-T6 bonded joints with three different adhesives (DC-80, Betamate 120 and MP55420) are presented in this paper. Single lap shear tests were used to determine maximum shear loads, for the single lap shear testing for 5.0 mm overlap length were 2 to 3.5 times higher in comparison to the 12.7 mm overlap length specimens. The results for the strain measurement revealed that higher strain-stress were developed in the 6061-T6 aluminum alloy adherend and in all cases they were lower than the adherends yield strength. Fatigue testing was carried out at 30, 50 and 70 % of the maximum shear load, 0.1 of reversibility load ratio (R) and 30 Hz of frequency. After testing, Basquin and Wholer graphs were built for each adhesive at 12.7 and 50.0 mm of overlap length. The results suggested that at higher overlapping, the cyclic maximum load increased. Additionally, the maximum fatigue loading at 10^6 cycles for MP55420 adhesive was 1.3 kN for an overlapping of 12.7 mm and 2.9 kN for 50 mm. For DC80 adhesive was 1.75 kN for overlapping 12.7 mm and 4.8 kN for 50 mm. Finally, for the Betamate 120 adhesive was 1.8 kN for 12.7 mm of overlapping and 6 kN for 50 mm. The post-fracture visual inspection revealed that MP55420 and Betamate 120 adhesives had a cohesive failure, while the DC-80 showed cohesive-adhesive failure. Additionally, the scanning electron microscopy evaluation on the spew fillet revealed resolved striations and a network of small micro-dimples for the Betamate 120 and MP55420 adhesives. On the other hand, DC-80 adhesive exhibited notable facet fragile failure that was confirmed by the shape of stress-strain plot with straight line from the origin to the point of fracture.

Analyser la complexité lexicale est une tâche qui, depuis toujours, a principalement retenu l’attention de psycholinguistes et d’enseignants de langues. Plus récemment, cette problématique a fait l’objet d’un intérêt grandissant dans le domaine du traitement automatique des langues (TAL) et, en particulier, en simplification automatique de textes. L’objectif de cette tâche est d’identifier des termes et des structures difficiles à comprendre par un public cible et de proposer des outils de simplification automatisée de ces contenus. Cet article aborde la question lexicale en identifiant un ensemble de prédicteurs de la complexité lexicale et en évaluant leur efficacité via une analyse corrélationnelle. Les meilleures de ces variables ont été intégrées dans un modèle capable de prédire la difficulté lexicale dans un contexte d’apprentissage du français.

In this article, we present ReSyf, a lexical resource of monolingual synonyms ranked according to their difficulty to be read and understood by native learners of French. The synonyms come from an existing lexical network and they have been semantically disambiguated and refined. A ranking algorithm, based on a wide range of linguistic features and validated through an evaluation campaign with human annotators, automatically sorts the synonyms corresponding to a given word sense by reading difficulty. ReSyf is freely available and will be integrated into a web platform for reading assistance. It can also be applied to perform lexical simplification of French texts.