Aidan M. Nikiforuk, Muhammad Zohaib Anwar, James Kwan
et al.
Wastewater surveillance is a valuable and noninvasive way to detect, monitor and rule out viral pathogen transmission at the population level. Drawing on lessons learned from severe acute respiratory virus two (SARS-CoV-2), monkeypox virus, norovirus and influenza A viruses, we outline six key considerations for designing or refining a wastewater surveillance program for a viral pathogen: pathogen suitability, surveillance objective, sampling strategy, molecular assays, data transformation, and analysis. Together, these components form an interdisciplinary “wastewater toolkit” that supports methodological rigor, adaptability, and comparability across settings. By providing a structured yet flexible framework that accommodates technical variation and contextual differences, this toolkit enhances preparedness and enables the rapid establishment or optimization of wastewater surveillance systems. Gaps and inefficiencies in disease surveillance can lead to inaccurate intelligence and inadequate or inappropriate public health responses, a systematic wastewater surveillance framework is essential to generate reliable indicators of viral transmission and inform timely, evidence-based decision-making for known and emerging pathogens.
Abstract Ethiopia confronts considerable challenges pertaining to the availability of clean drinking water, impacting numerous communities throughout the nation. This review critically evaluates the present condition of water quality and sanitation in Ethiopia, underscoring significant barriers and proposing feasible strategies to guarantee access to potable water and sufficient sanitation facilities. The investigation explores the determinants contributing to the insufficiency of water supply and sanitation infrastructure, pinpointing fundamental issues such as inadequate infrastructure development, restricted water distribution networks, ineffective waste management practices, and the overuse of insecticides and synthetic fertilizers. Untreated sewage, industrial effluents, and agricultural runoff further intensify contamination risks. Utilizing a comprehensive analysis of 36 scientific journals, studies, and articles acquired from repositories such as PubMed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and various indexed scholarly journals, the review elucidates disparities in water quality across various regions. While certain locales exhibit moderate water quality, others contend with severe contamination, presenting significant public health hazards. The results accentuate the imperative of enacting measures to improve water quality and ensure equitable access to clean drinking water for all populations. Proposed strategies advocate for substantial investments in water and sanitation infrastructure that are congruent with sustainable development objectives. Policy initiatives should prioritize the enhancement of water reservoirs, the expansion of distribution systems, and the promotion of environmentally sustainable agricultural practices. Moreover, capacity-building initiatives for healthcare institutions, researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders are essential for effectively addressing these challenges. Fortifying these efforts will contribute to alleviating water pollution, enhancing sanitation services, and protecting public health for forthcoming generations. Furthermore, the findings provide valuable lessons for other developing countries facing similar water quality challenges, and contribute to international efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation for all).
Qusay Al-Obaidi, Nora Yehia Selem, Oumaima Karai
et al.
Abstract Recovery/extracting of a combination of lead (Pb(II)) and vanadium (V(V)) ions from wastewater has been enhanced by an emulsion liquid membrane with the presence of magnesium oxide (MgO) or aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles (20–50 nm size range) in the internal/stripping phase (W1) and ionic liquid ([OMIM] PF6) in the organic/oil phase (O). The study found that the recovery/extraction batch time was shortened, enhancing emulsion extraction efficiency and stability. Furthermore, the study outcomes extend the ELM separation techniques to industrial-scale pollutant recovery/extraction applications, especially heavy metal ions, from industrial effluent. The percentage of Pb(II) recovery/extraction was increased significantly within three minutes when adding 0.01% (w/w) of MgO or Al2O3 nanoparticles separately with 5% (v/v) ([OMIM]PF6) ionic liquid achieving 95.8 and 94.6%, respectively. The recovery/extraction percentage of V(V) significantly improved to 98.6% within three minutes by adding 0.01% (w/w) of MgO nanoparticles. The percentage extraction reached 97.7% when adding 0.01% (w/w) of Al2O3 nanoparticles in the presence of 5% (v/v) ([OMIM]PF6) in both cases. The emulsion stability was noticeably enhanced, resulting in a 16% leakage after more than three days.
En los últimos años, la gestión de los recursos hídricos ha detonado un mayor involucramiento político de diversos actores que buscan democratizar las decisiones de gobierno. Este artículo tiene el objetivo de describir los factores y mecanismos de movilización y participación ciudadana impulsados por el movimiento socioambiental #UnRíoEnElRío desde julio hasta diciembre de 2023 en torno a la deforestación del río Santa Catarina, en Nuevo León, México. Se utilizó la teoría del proceso político y el concepto de participación ciudadana, y metodológicamente se desarrolló un caso de estudio, una entrevista grupal, observación participante y revisión bibliográfica para saturar de información las variables de acuerdo con esta teoría y concepto, así como a la escalera de participación y el Acuerdo de Escazú. Los resultados muestran que la movilización y participación ciudadana iniciaron a partir de una amenaza ambiental, derivada del daño ecológico al río, mientras que las oportunidades políticas existieron especialmente a causa del conflicto político entre las élites del gobierno estatal. Los principales espacios de participación ciudadana fueron tanto informales ―protesta, petición change.org, activismo digital, el festival “Río Fest”― como mecanismos formales ―solicitud de audiencia pública, solicitud de petición y amparo legal (los cuales fueron los de mayor nivel de participación)―. El caso expone cómo se puede favorecer la democratización y gobernanza de los recursos hídricos desde la sociedad civil, y que es fundamental que las autoridades de gobierno promuevan procesos participativos proactivos, para lograr políticas públicas legítimas, eficaces e integrales.
Hydraulic engineering, Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes
Purpose: Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging (MRSI) maps endogenous brain metabolism while suppressing the overwhelming water signal. Water-unsuppressed MRSI (wu-MRSI) allows simultaneous imaging of water and metabolites, but large water sidebands cause challenges for metabolic fitting. We developed an end-to-end deep-learning pipeline to overcome these challenges at ultra-high field. Methods:Fast high-resolution wu-MRSI was acquired at 7T with non-cartesian ECCENTRIC sampling and ultra-short echo time. A water and lipid removal network (WALINET+) was developed to remove lipids, water signal, and sidebands. MRSI reconstruction was performed by DeepER and a physics-informed network for metabolite fitting. Water signal was used for absolute metabolite quantification, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), and myelin water fraction imaging (MWF). Results: WALINET+ provided the lowest NRMSE (< 2%) in simulations and in vivo the smallest bias (< 20%) and limits-of-agreement (+-63%) between wu-MRSI and ws-MRSI scans. Several metabolites such as creatine and glutamate showed higher SNR in wu-MRSI. QSM and MWF obtained from wu-MRSI and GRE showed good agreement with 0 ppm/5.5% bias and +-0.05 ppm/ +- 12.75% limits-of-agreement. Conclusion: High-quality metabolic, QSM, and MWF mapping of the human brain can be obtained simultaneously by ECCENTRIC wu-MRSI at 7T with 2 mm isotropic resolution in 12 min. WALINET+ robustly removes water sidebands while preserving metabolite signal, eliminating the need for water suppression and separate water acquisitions.
Water consumption is an increasingly critical dimension of computing sustainability, especially as AI workloads rapidly scale. However, current water impact assessment often overlooks where and when water stress is more severe. To fill in this gap, we present SCARF, the first general framework that evaluates water impact of computing by factoring in both spatial and temporal variations in water stress. SCARF calculates an Adjusted Water Impact (AWI) metric that considers both consumption volume and local water stress over time. Through three case studies on LLM serving, datacenters, and semiconductor fabrication plants, we show the hidden opportunities for reducing water impact by optimizing location and time choices, paving the way for water-sustainable computing. The code is available at https://github.com/jojacola/SCARF.
Giuseppe Galante, Christiancarmine Esposito, Pietro Catalano
et al.
The financial sustainability of a generic supply chain is a complex problem, which can be addressed through detailed monitoring of financial operations deriving from stakeholder interrelationships and consequent analysis of these financial data to compute the relative economic indicators. This allows the identification of specific fintech tools that can be selected to mitigate financial risks. The intention is to retrieve the financial transactions and private information of stakeholders involved in the supply chain to construct a knowledge base and a digital twin representation that can be used to visualize, analyze, and mitigate the issues associated with the financial sustainability of the chain. We propose a software platform that employs key enabling technologies, including AI, blockchain, knowledge graph, and others, opportunely coordinated to address the financial sustainability problem affecting single stakeholders and the entire supply chain. This platform allows for the involvement of external entities that can help stakeholders or the whole supply chain to solve financial sustainability problems through economic interventions. Moreover, introducing these entities enables stakeholders less well-positioned in the market to access financial services offered by credit institutions, utilising the supply chain's internal information as evidence of its reliability. To validate the proposed idea, a case study will be presented analyzing the financial instrument of securitization.
With the rapid advancement of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs), numerous evaluation benchmarks have emerged. However, comprehensive assessments of their performance across diverse industrial applications remain limited. In this paper, we introduce MME-Industry, a novel benchmark designed specifically for evaluating MLLMs in industrial settings.The benchmark encompasses 21 distinct domain, comprising 1050 question-answer pairs with 50 questions per domain. To ensure data integrity and prevent potential leakage from public datasets, all question-answer pairs were manually crafted and validated by domain experts. Besides, the benchmark's complexity is effectively enhanced by incorporating non-OCR questions that can be answered directly, along with tasks requiring specialized domain knowledge. Moreover, we provide both Chinese and English versions of the benchmark, enabling comparative analysis of MLLMs' capabilities across these languages. Our findings contribute valuable insights into MLLMs' practical industrial applications and illuminate promising directions for future model optimization research.
We propose 3-axis solar tracker water pumping system. The solar tracker can rotate and tilt using stepper/DC motors and can rise and lower on a tripod using a linear actuator. The charge generated from solar energy absorbed by photovoltaic (PV) cells in the solar panel is stored in a 12V battery that in turn powers two water diaphragm pumps using a solar charge controller. The PV uses four light photocell resistors/sensors to measure light intensity. A solar tracking algorithm determines the optimal angle for PV positioning. Using an ultrasonic sensor to measure the water level in a reservoir water tank, water is pumped from one water tank to the reservoir. Based on soil moisture sensor levels, a second water pump supplies water from the reservoir to the plant. The system is analyzed from a control systems perspective. The transfer functions, root loci, and Bode plots are generated and simulated and experimental results are provided as well as stability and steady-state error analysis.
Giovanna Takano Natti, Érica Regina Takano Natti, Paulo Laerte Natti
We present a review of the current and future industrial applications of neutrinos. We address the industrial applications of neutrinos in geological and geochemical studies of the Earth's interior, in monitoring earthquakes, in terrestrial communications, in applications for submarines, in monitoring nuclear power plants and fusion reactors, in the management of fissile materials used in nuclear plants, in tracking nuclear tests, among other applications. We also address future possibilities for industrial applications of neutrinos, especially concerning communications in the solar system and geotomography of solar system bodies.
Piped drinking water supplies are exposed to a range of threats. Changing hazard situations arise from climate change, digitisation, and changing conditions in the power supply, among other things. Risk and crisis management adapted to the hazard situation can increase the resilience of the piped drinking water supply. Analogous to the risk management system, this article describes a methodology that ranges from hazard analysis with the prioritisation of 57 individual hazards to vulnerability assessment with the help of balance sheet structure models (BSM) and the planning and implementation of measures to increase the resilience of the piped drinking water supply in a targeted manner. The work steps mentioned build on each other and were tested using the case study of a water supply company in Saxony (Germany). As a result, priority hazards are identified, the remaining supply periods and replacement and emergency water requirements are determined as part of the vulnerability assessment, and finally, planning principles for increasing resilience are documented. The methodology focuses primarily on practicable application by water supply companies.
Abstract This study used data from various international databases to track the progress of SDG 6 target indicators in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region between 2015 and 2020. Findings showed that although minimal positive progress was realized in the evaluation period, more than half of SSA residents had no access to safe drinking water services, improved sanitation facilities, hygiene services and safe wastewater treatment. The computed SDG 6 profile index conformed with the trend of indicators as progress of the region to the goal’s realization was rated as medium–low. The trend was further compounded by limited data, preferential access to water and sanitation services to the urban rich and poor monitoring of progress. The analysis also noted that despite these challenges the region was putting concerted efforts to promote transboundary cooperation in water management and had 6% of water stressed resources. The study recommended on the need to revamp water data collection and monitoring efforts to enable decision-making and planning on management actions, use of technology to treat and reuse wastewater as well as device new sources of water, enhanced participation of communities in water projects and improved water use efficiency to steer progress towards SDG 6 realization in SSA region.
Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes, Environmental sciences
AbstractIntroduction: The sharp decrease in rainfall has reached the peak of drought conditions in Fars province, so that the discharge of all rivers in Fars province has decreased between 70 to 100 percent, and due to the limitation of renewable water resources, there is a need for optimal and sustainable use of existing water resources. All reservoirs of dams in Fars province are necessary.Methods: The main purpose and methodology of this research is to design a mathematical planning model for the optimal allocation of water resources of selected dams in Fars province, in order to net advantage of the system on the planning horizon that issues such as time period, reliability level, course currents, number of dams and consider some scenarios. Accordingly, the objective function of the model seeks the maximum advantage obtained for dams based on the parameters set with three indices of scenario, dam and time period.Findings: At first, this model was considered for 5 users (dams) with 4 different scenarios in 10 monthly time periods, in which case the value of the objective function reached 39863110. Then, in order to analyze the sensitivity of the results and show the change of the optimal answer depending on the dimensions of the problem, the model was implemented for 10 users (dams) with 8 different scenarios in 20 monthly time periods in which the value of the objective function reached 82944240. Therefore, with the increase of the dimensions of the problem, a significant increase in the amount of the objective function and the optimal allocation of water resources of the selected centuries occurs in Fars province. Therefore, due to water shortages and recent droughts in Fars province, it is necessary to pay attention to sustainable and equitable development in planning the allocation of water resources and taking into account various indicators simultaneously.
Water treatment facilities are critical infrastructure they must accommodate dynamic demand patterns without system disruption. These patterns can be scheduled, such as daily residential irrigation, or unexpected, such as demand spikes from withdrawals for fire management. The critical necessity of clean, safe, and reliable water requires water treatment control strategies that are insensitive to disturbances to guarantee that demand will be met. One essential problem in achieving this is the minimization of energy costs in the process of meeting water demand, especially as the need for decarbonization persists. This work develops a control-oriented hydraulic model of a water treatment facility with integrated pumped storage and introduces a model predictive control strategy for scheduling treatment plant system operations to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and safely meet water demand.
Ali Talebi, Majid Karimi, MohammadTaghi Ghaneian
et al.
Abstract
Introduction: Due to the lack of rainfall and the negative balance of groundwater aquifers in recent years, the use of unconventional water sources such as effluents and sewage for artificial feeding is one of the important methods to deal with decline in groundwater aquifers. In the Borujen-Faradonbeh plain, in order to reduce the effects of drought on groundwater resources, the aquifer of this plain has been artificially fed using the effluent of the Borujen treatment plant. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the effluent of Borujen water treatment plant on the quality of groundwater resources in this plain.
Methods: To investigate the quality of effluent and its effect on the downstream water of the treatment plant, water wells downstream and upstream were sampled. The samples were immediately transferred to the laboratory and analyzes including the concentrations of Mg, Ca, K Li, Na, S, St, Si, Sc, V, Ba, Cr and V were performed on the samples.
Findings: The results showed that except for calcium, potassium and chromium elements which were not statistically significant differences between the water samples taken from the upstream and downstream of the treatment plant (sig> 0.05) but the number of other elements differed between the upstream and downstream wells of the treatment plant. Were significant (sig <0.05). But the same amount is within the set standards. Also, IDW maps related to these elements showed that the northern and northwestern parts of the plain (downstream of the Borujen city treatment plant) have areas with high concentrations of these elements.
The coastal catchment of Wadi Gaza is the main surface water basin that flows downstream to Gaza's coastal plain zone and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. The model-based assessment of the Wadi Gaza hydrological system is an essential endeavor for more efficient management of water resources and ensuring water security in terms of climate changes and anthropogenic processes. The hydrological simulation of the basin was performed using the SWAT model between 1984 and 2020. The outputs of the simulation predicted an average discharge that varies between zero in the summer months and about 15 m3/s in the winter with a maximum recorded discharge of about 130 m3/s. The model predicted average sediment and nutrient discharge to the sea as 3673, 177, and 62 tons per month of sediments, total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP), respectively. The average dissolved inorganic nitrogen discharges were predicted to be 4, 13, and 1 tons per month for Nitrate (NO3), Ammonium (NH4), and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), respectively during the rainy season. The constructed model is used to predict flood volumes and associated TN and TP for return periods (T) of 2, 25, 50, and 100 years. These return periods corresponded to total water discharges of 18, 91, 105, and 127 m3/s, respectively, accounting for 1,142, 5,773, 6,915, and 8,059 tons of TN, and 414, 2,092, 2,505, and 2,919 tons, of TP respectively.
HIGHLIGHTS
The modeling-based assessment of the catchment is essential to characterize the hydrological system in the Mediterranean due to the lack of real field monitoring programs.;
The nutrient transport pattern depends on the discharges of stream flooding.;
The monthly amount of TN and TP that might be carried to the downstream zone of the Wadi Gaza during the wet seasons could be as high as 177 and 62 tons, respectively.;
River, lake, and water-supply engineering (General), Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes
Mir Rohi Neelofar, Sami Ullah Bhat, Mohammad Muslim
Abstract Water is limited and is unevenly distributed globally. India being home to approximately 18% of the global population accounts for only 4% of global renewable water resources, making it the world’s 13th most water-stressed country. The increase in human population coupled with accelerated economic activities and climate change has put enormous pressure on government and policymakers in India to find different innovative and smart ways to manage the demand–supply gap in the water sector. Despite having the largest water infrastructure in the world and concerns raised about increasing water crisis in national discourse at academic, policy and governance levels, the tangible outcome does not resonate adequately on the ground level. Identification of alternate tools, calibration and fine-tuning relevant policy and planning necessitate the need of implementing water auditing and water recycling to meet the ever-increasing water demand as far as the water footprint in India is concerned. Based on the principle of what gets measured gets managed, water auditing best caters to the water management needs and is yet to become a top priority to curb the water crisis. Public acceptance seems to be one of the major barriers in universalizing water recycling in India which is aggravated by the uneven and/or absence of a proper and adequate water governance approach and structure. This paper tries to highlight the major challenges water resources management is facing in India and aims to illustrate how well planned water auditing and water recycling as a tool can deliver in effective and rational utilization and distribution of water.
We model a system of n asymmetric firms selling a homogeneous good in a common market through a pay-as-bid auction. Every producer chooses as its strategy a supply function returning the quantity S(p) that it is willing to sell at a minimum unit price p. The market clears at the price at which the aggregate demand intersects the total supply and firms are paid the bid prices. We study a game theoretic model of competition among such firms and focus on its equilibria (Supply function equilibrium). The game we consider is a generalization of both models where firms can either set a fixed quantity (Cournot model) or set a fixed price (Bertrand model). Our main result is to prove existence and provide a characterization of (pure strategy) Nash equilibria in the space of K-Lipschitz supply functions.