Microbial diversity in innovative mesophilic/thermophilic temperature-phased anaerobic digestion of sludge

n/

Lessons from SARS-CoV-2 Pandemics: How Restrictive Measures Impacted the Trend of Respiratory Infections in Neonates and Infants up to Three Months of Age

(1) Background: Massive social efforts to prevent the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic have affected the epidemiological features of respiratory infections. (2) Methods: The study aims to describe the trend of hospitalizations for bronchiolitis among newborns and infants up to three months of life in Rome (Italy), in the pre-COVID-19 era and during the pandemic. (3) Results: We observed a marked decrease in the number of neonates and infants with bronchiolitis after national lockdowns in 2020 and the first months of 2021 and a similar trend in the number of bronchiolitis caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV was the leading pathogen responsible for bronchiolitis before the national lockdown in March 2020 (70.0% of cases), while Rhinovirus was the leading pathogen responsible for bronchiolitis (62.5%) during the pandemic while strict restrictions were ongoing. As Italy approached the COVID-19 vaccination target, the national government lifted some COVID-19-related restrictions. A surprising rebound of bronchiolitis (particularly cases caused by RSV) was observed in October 2021. (4) Conclusions: In this study, we describe for the first time the fluctuations over time of RSV bronchiolitis among newborns and young infants in Italy in relation to the restrictive measures containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results are in line with other countries' reports

Energy yield potentials from the anaerobic digestion of common animal manure in Bangladesh

This study provides previously unavailable field data relating to the biogas and methane yields from supervised authentic anaerobic digesters using the most common animal manure in Bangladesh: cow dung, poultry litter and town cattle market straw which are found to produce biogas yields of 0.034, 0.030 and 0.142 m3/kg respectively, with methane concentrations of 60% and 62% and 74% respectively and total solids of 19, 23 and 45 respectively. It also reports indications that in unsupervised plant issues with underfeeding, improper water mixing and irregular feeding are very common – all of which can significantly reduce yields. The figures above should thus be treated as maximum, optimum field values. These results provide reliable data for use in scaling up for national energy and investment planning, as they related directly to common scenarios of family smallholdings, common sized poultry farms and town cattle markets in Bangladesh where there is a reliance on combustion of local wood and dung biomass for cooking, creating air pollution, health and environmental degradation issues

Efficacy of methanogenic biomass acclimation in mesophilic anaerobic digestion of ultrasound pretreated sludge

<p>Methanogenic biomass plays a key role with regard to methane production during anaerobic bioconversion of organic substrates. In this study, the effect of two different acclimated inocula on digestion performances was investigated by means of anaerobic batch tests on untreated and sonicated waste-activated sludge. Organics solubilization and removal kinetics, the abundance and physiological conditions of archaeal cells on ultimate methane yield were evaluated. The simultaneous presence of <i>Methanosarcina</i> and <i>Methanosaeta</i> in the archaeal biomass, the higher initial archaeal cells relative abundance and their occurrence in the aggregated forms were the main factors positively affecting the conversion into methane. The presence of the acclimated inoculum at the start-up influenced positively the methane improvement due to sonication, and the methane-specific production increased from 0.335 ± 0.03 to 0.420 ± 0.05 Nm³/kg VS_fed. Moreover, the better physiological state of methanogens permitted to appreciate the effect of hydrolysis improvement by ultrasound pretreatment.</p