1,720,961 research outputs found
Modelling the impacts generated by reclaimed wastewater reuse in agriculture: From literature gaps to an integrated risk assessment in a One Health perspective
Full text linkThe reuse of reclaimed wastewater is increasingly recognized as a viable alternative water source for irrigation. Its application, whether direct or indirect, impacts several interconnected compartments, including groundwater, surface water, soil, crops, and humans. Reclaimed wastewater provides essential resources for crops, like water and nutrients. However, it also introduces pathogens, and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), defined as chemicals that may pose risks to human health and ecosystems but are not yet fully regulated, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products, among others. Additionally, reclaimed wastewater may contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARBs) and disinfection by-products (DBPs), all of which present potential health and environmental risks. Therefore, regulatory bodies stress the need for preventive risk assessments to ensure safe reuse. This paper critically reviews available models for assessing the impacts of reclaimed wastewater reuse in agriculture. It identifies gaps in current modelling approaches and outlines future research directions. Key areas requiring further investigation include the fate and transfer of CECs, ARBs and DBPs, and the co-occurrence of multiple risks in such interconnected systems, especially in the indirect reuse. To address these gaps, we proposed a simplified approach to integrate three types of risk associated with CECs in indirect reuse, focusing on risks posed by antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals: human health risk, environmental risk and risk from antibiotic resistance development. This approach aids in identifying the most critical endpoints within the One Health approach, supporting (i) CECs prioritization in regulations based on their critical endpoints and (ii) the adoption of CEC-specific mitigation measures
Tackling climate change through wastewater reuse in agriculture: A prioritization methodology
Full text linkWater shortages, exacerbated by climate change, are posing a major global challenge, particularly impacting the agricultural sector. A growing interest is raised towards reclaimed wastewater (RWW) as an alternative irrigation source, capable of exploiting also the nutrient content through the fertigation practice. However, a prioritization methodology for selecting the most appropriate wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for implementing direct RWW reuse is currently missing. Such prioritization would benefit water utilities, often managing several WWTPs, and policymakers in optimizing economic asset allocation. In this work, a prioritization framework is proposed to evaluate WWTPs' suitability for implementing direct RWW reuse considering both WWTP and surrounding territory characteristics. This procedure consists of four key steps. Firstly, a techno-economic model was developed, in which monthly mass balances on water and nutrients are solved by matching crop requirements, rainfall conditions, and effluent characteristics. Economic suitability was quantified considering economic benefits due to savings in freshwater resource, mineral fertilizers and avoided greenhouse gases emissions, but also losses in crop yield due to RWW salinity content. Secondly, a classification procedure was coded to select representative WWTPs among a set of WWTPs, based on their size, presence of nutrient removal processes, and type of crops in their surroundings. The techno-economic model was then applied to these selected WWTPs. Thirdly, input parameters' relevance in determining WWTP suitability for RWW reuse was ranked. Finally, scenario analyses were conducted to study the influence of rainfall patterns and nutrient treatment removal on the RWW reuse feasibility. The type of crops surrounding the WWTPs and RWW salinity content resulted to be crucial elements in determining WWTPs suitability for RWW reuse implementation. The proposed methodology proved to be an effective support tool for policymakers and water utilities to assess the techno-economic feasibility of direct RWW reuse, generalizing results to several combinations of WWTPs and crops
Alkylphenols from drinking water and food consumption: an integrated human health risk assessment
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Quantitative chemical risk assessment for mixtures: Application to alkylphenol mixtures and phthalate mixtures in tap and bottled water.
Full text linkThe occurrence and hazard risks of mixtures of Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) in drinking water (DW) lead to serious consideration regarding the possible impacts on public health. Consequently, there is ongoing research, development and empowerment of risk assessment procedures to get more toxicological insight. For instance, alkylphenols and phthalates have been frequently reported to be present both in bottled and tap water, affecting different human endpoints. Currently, deterministic chemical risk assessment (CRA) is used to evaluate the compounds' mixture health risk. However, CRA deals just qualitatively with sources of uncertainty, which may lead to erroneous assessment of risks. Here, a new procedure for quantitative chemical risk assessment of CEC mixtures (QCRAMIX) is proposed. Its potential is illustrated by a case study where the risks related to the presence of mixtures of alkylphenols or phthalates in tap versus bottled DW are compared. Uncertainties in both exposure and hazard assessment steps of the procedure are included to calculate a probabilistic mixture Benchmark Quotient (BQMIX). The QCRAMIX procedure highlighted the non-negligible health risks posed by those compounds in both DW sources based on overall water consumption. In fact, DW consumers' behaviour in 13 different countries, in terms of total DW consumption and fraction of bottled and tap water consumed, were considered to evaluate the influence on health risk. For alkylphenols, the total water consumption was found to be the most relevant factor in increasing the health risk, while for phthalates the risk was found to be mainly influenced by the percentage of bottled water consumed. Hence, the proposed QCRAMIX procedure can be a valuable tool for prioritization of CECs to be included in DW regulations which aim to minimize the overall risk, accounting for actual DW consumption
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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