1,720,994 research outputs found
Reclamation and Agricultural Reuse of Mixed Industrial and Domestic Wastewater Treated by Aerobic Biological Process and Ozonation
Full text linkPollution and increasing water demand, especially for agriculture, put severe stress on freshwater sources, and as a result, there is progressive deficit in the global water supply. In the face of growing water scarcity and droughts, integration of high water-volume and nutrient-rich industrial effluents, into the existing water management plans for agriculture, could be a viable option to mitigate water scarcity and support the agriculture sector. Suspended growth biological process (SGBP) and ozone (O3) were studied for the treatment of mixed industrial and domestic wastewater, and the effluents were used for the growth of lettuce and silverbeet in hydroponics.SGBP proved to be efficient in biodegradation of complex organic pollutants and performed optimally at 60/30-min on/off alternated aeration cycles, achieving up to 92.1, 90.6, 83.6 and 93.5% reductions in COD, BOD5, diesel oil and methylene blue (MB) dye compounds, respectively. Thanks to the aeration conditions and dissolved oxygen levels (3.21–0.32 mgDO/L) which allowed the growth and co-existence of diverse microbial strains with a wide range of metabolic pathways potential for hydrolysis and subsequent degradation of poorly biodegradable organic complexes. In addition, extended biomass acclimation (lasting up to 98-d) to the wastewater conditions allowed the proliferation and enrichment of bacterial consortia with hydrocarbon and organic complexes degrading traits. Nutrients were removed considerably, up to 88.3% TN and 83.8% PO4-P. Nitrification activity (64.1%) was uninhibited, even on transition to pulsed aeration cycles. Further treatment by ozone at a fixed doze of 250 mgO3/h and up to 60-120 min exposure time was accompanied by degradation and structural modification of complex organic compounds into lower molecular weight compounds, thus attaining up to 14.8, 45.9 and 31.8% reductions in COD, diesel oil and MB dye compounds, respectively. The reclaimed streams were analysed for metals using the ICP-MS instrument and the concentrations of all elements tested, exception of Cu, Mn and Mo, fall within the permissible range for crop irrigation.Regarding the hydroponic cultivation, compared to the control, plants that received effluents with external nutrient had a comparable aerial biomass and vegetative growth, higher photosynthetic pigments but exhibited some degree of root development impairments. This was probably due to high activity of H+ in irrigation streams, which probably promoted secondary toxicity of metals including Al3+, Mn2+, Cu2+ on plant roots. However, under pH-controlled irrigation, an improvement in root growth was observed. The biomass of plants watered with only the treated wastewater were more than 50% higher than the yield in tap water control and plants exhibited high degree of root foraging. The root concentrations of the studied metals, particularly Al, Mn, Cu and Zn were higher than the corresponding shoot concentrations, and the concentrations were considerably lower than the maximum allowable concentrations in leafy vegetables. Pearson correlation analysis showed a significant positive interaction (p<0.01) between K and other elements (Mg, Ca, Cu, Mn, Zn and Fe) in plant tissues, thus indicating its role in facilitating transportation of nutrients and photo-assimilates in plant.The sequential combination of suspended growth biological process and ozonation could effectively treat complex mixed industrial and domestic wastewater and produce high-quality effluents with agricultural reuse potential. The results offer new perspectives in development of sustainable process technology that can efficiently address the problem of mixed wastewater and rising challenges of water scarcity facing humanity
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
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Development and implementation of a sustainability assessment tool for wastewater asset decision-making
Full text link"The UK wastewater sector is facing increasing challenges such as regulatory pressure, population growth and climate change when making investment decisions. This has resulted in a growing demand for assessment tools that informs the selection of suitable wastewater treatment processes and technologies from the sustainability perspective. The objective of this research was to develop a sustainability assessment tool for a water company in the UK to compare wastewater treatment processes and inform its investment decisions given its unique combination of challenges and needs.The development of the assessment tool encompassed several phases with an underlying pragmatic research paradigm. The first stage utilised an exploratory case study to understand the current decision drivers and the organisational context. The case study specifically involved a round of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and thematic analyses. The findings then informed the methodological design of the assessment tool. A suite of assessment criteria and indicators were selected based on literature review and findings from the case study. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) was selected as the assessment methodology as it was considered suitable and useful to incorporate the Three- Pillars model of sustainability. The assessment methodology was applied to two pilot studies to test its feasibility and robustness. Once the methodology had been confirmed, the assessment methodology was built into a ‘tool’ with a user interface, culminating in a round of usability testing with end-users in the organisation to examine its overall utility and ease of use. The results of testing suggest the assessment tool is easy to use and understand and offered useful insights into the sustainability credentials of wastewater treatment alternatives. This research also proposed a provisional framework for developing a multi- criteria sustainability tool in a corporate environment, which can be extrapolated for wider applications. The research also demonstrated the significance of pragmatic research in developing a practical solution for industrial-based research whilst highlighting the potential synergy between sustainability assessment, MCDA and decision support systems. The findings and insights of this research will accelerate the practical integration of MCDA into the corporate decision-making process for performing sustainability assessments.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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