1,721,250 research outputs found

    An integrated system to remote monitor and control anaerobic wastewater treatment plants through the internet

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    The TELEMAC project brings new methodologies from the Information and Science Technologies field to the world of water treatment. TELEMAC offers an advanced remote management system which adapts to most of the anaerobic wastewater treatment plants that do not benefit from a local expert in wastewater treatment. The TELEMAC system takes advantage of new sensors to better monitor the process dynamics and to run automatic controllers that stabilise the treatment plant, meet the depollution requirements and provide a biogas quality suitable for cogeneration. If the automatic system detects a failure which cannot be solved automatically or locally by a technician, then an expert from the TELEMAC Control Centre is contacted via the internet and manages the problem

    Grey water in buildings: a mini-review of guidelines, technologies and case studies

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    ABSTRACT: The aim of the work is to describe the state-of-the-art on the reuse of grey water at building level taking into account (i) the grey water characteristics and amounts produced, (ii) the recycling guidelines, (iii) the treatment systems and reuse technologies, also considering the removal of micro-pollutants as xenobiotic organic compounds, and (iv) an overview of case studies for developed countries. The mini-review highlights how the existing technologies allow the safe reuse of grey water. Attention must be given to the removal of micro-pollutants especially when the discharge takes place in surface water. With reference to 12 case studies of buildings which adopt non-conventional technologies with the aim to optimise energy consumptions, results showed how the use of non-conventional technologies for water is very limited. However, adopting an integrated approach to water-energy, it is possible to use more effectively the water for energy purposes as in the cases of cooling/heating systems. © 2015 Taylor & Francis

    Development and application of a planning support tool in the municipal wastewater sector: The case study of Italy

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    Financing investment needs during the next 20 years for Integrated Water Service facilities which includes aqueducts, sewers, drinking water as well as wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), is a significant challenge for government institutions all over the world. There is an urgent need for new approaches to help decisions makers in order to evaluate the quality and efficiency of these infrastructures and consequently planning investments in the best possible way. Taking into account only the municipal wastewater sector in Italy, the aim of this study was to develop and apply a planning support tool to numerous WWTPs based on secondary biological processes, able to: (i) assess the plants efficiency identifying also their environmental and technological critical issues; (ii) propose technical solutions through the definition of appropriate Action Plans; (iii) simulate WWTPs improvements quantifying the results of the proposed upgrade and; (iv) extend the results of the WWTPs efficiency evaluation on a regional scale comparing the performance of each District by means of specific indices (technological equipment, legal requirement compliance, treatment capacity). Our main hypothesis was that the evaluation of quality as well as the efficiency of the wastewater treatment facilities is the basis for the estimation of investments. We applied this methodology to large Italian municipal WWTPs with a treatment capacity greater than a 50,000 population equivalent (PE) even though it is possible to consider smaller facilities (excluding small wastewater treatment systems generally with a PE less than 2000 inhabitants). Our results demonstrate that the tool can be implemented using official data such as those provided by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) although some verification is required. Finally, the paper addresses the policy implications due to the methodology application highlighting the importance of having well-defined planning support tools especially for those areas needing further social cohesion policies. The developed case study shows the suitability of our proposal for governmental institutions and water utility companies in Italy, however it could also be extended to other countries. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

    Remarks on the preconditioned conjugate gradient method in the ocean general circulationmodel OPA,

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    In this work we analyze the elliptic kernel’s solver of the numerical model OPA that is a Ocean General Circulation Model. We theoretically and numerically show an increasing of the performance in terms of higher speed of convergence with a computational cost that scale linearly with the size of the problem

    Implementing a composite indicator approach for prioritizing activated sludge-based wastewater treatment plants at large spatial scale

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    Successful implementation of the European Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive requires a deepened and multidisciplinary knowledge of the wastewater systems. The development of ready-to-use tools for decision makers is, in this sense, a challenge. This paper proposes a methodology to efficiently prioritize wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) on the basis of the relative environmental, social and public health impacts, taking into account the territorial context issues. The proposed methodology has led to the implementation of a composite indicator. The several choices made for its development, from the definition of framework to the final outcomes, have been evaluated in depth and are supported through methodological and statistical techniques. The potential use of the composite indicator with the inherent advantages and limitations are discussed in order to provide a ready-to-use tool for final users for WWTPs prioritization. Moreover, a concise methodology for composite index implementation is described. © 2016 Elsevier Lt

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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